Mittman, Stephanie (4 page)

She
smiled down at the woman, who couldn't have been more than twenty or so.
"Yes," she admitted, "I did."

"And
you were sent to take care of my baby?" Emily asked, her breathing labored
and her hand slipping from Mary Grace's own.

"I
was sent to..." Mary Grace looked around the room. Harlin had tears in his
eyes, and the one they called Wilson was staring at a crack in the ceiling. The
third one, Mason, turned and walked quietly out of the room.

"I...
I...," Mary Grace stammered, but was interrupted when the man returned,
carrying a sleepy child who rubbed at his eyes with a closed fist. He couldn't
have been more than five or six months old.

Emily
began to cough uncontrollably, but the baby, unaware that his mother was dying,
still reached out for her, and Mary Grace's arms went up of their own accord as
she came forward and took the baby from the man's hands. She stood with him in
the doorway, patting his back and feeling his heavy head bang against her chest
as he tried to fight sleep unsuccessfully.

It
wasn't Benjamin, that was certain.

"The
good Lord sent you to watch my baby, didn't he?" Emily begged, between
coughs. "And you boys know that the Lord'll punish you just as sure as
he's punishin' me if you hurt one hair on this angel's head. That's why you're
here, Mary Grace O'Reilly, ain't it? God sent you just for this here
boy...."

Mary
Grace thought about it as she kissed the top of the baby's head and smelled the
warm sweet smell of his sleeping body. He found his thumb in his sleep and
began to suck on it. That and the sputtering of the oil lamp were the only
sounds in the room. Who knew better about punishment from the Lord?

"Yes,"
she said, as much to herself as to the woman lying near death in the tiny bed
in the crowded room.

She
tried to ignore the fact that the man who had brought the baby into the room
now stood pointing a
rifle at her head. After all, if he really meant to shoot her, he'd take away
the baby first.

"Take
Horace and put him back in his bed," he told Harlin. "And then show
the lady where she can sleep."

"Guess
that'd be under Wilson," Harlin said with a smirk, but his smile quickly
faded at Mason's scowl.

"Nobody's
gonna be mountin' nobody," he said with finality. "And somebody feed
Dukeboy. That damn dog's howlin' is makin' me crazy."

He
gestured with his head for Mary Grace to follow him and pointed his nose at a
door across the hall. She pushed open the door, smiled in thanks, and shoved it
closed behind her. Then she pried off her boots, peeled off her damp socks, and
crawled into the strange bed, her heart hammering and her head swimming. It
smelled as if wild animals had used the bed for mating, but it was soft, and
warm, and she was so very tired.

She
wondered whether anyone had noticed yet that she had fallen off the face of the
earth. No doubt Benjamin's mother and grandfather were frantic by now, and that
meant they'd have called Jan at the agency. For a moment, she wished she were
an important person. Right about now she could use some pull to merit an APB.

Please,
she
whispered in the darkness,
let someone be looking for me.

***

Daybreak
brought a surprise Sloan Westin hadn't been expecting. He'd seen to his needs
and his meal long before sunup and had been waiting on the ridge only a short
time when he spotted Wilson Tate's horse bearing two riders down to the river's
edge. Wilson reached behind him and lowered the redheaded woman Sloan had
observed the previous day.

She
was no longer wearing her Levi's but instead had on the same kind of long skirt
and Mexican-looking blouse Emily Tate often wore. Wilson handed her down a soft
sack and said something to her. Sloan strained, but he couldn't hear a blasted
word. He watched Wilson gesture in the direction of some rocks and saw the
woman shield her eyes from the sun as she followed his finger. She looked at
the bracelet on her wrist and nodded. Then she stood watching as Wilson eased
his horse toward the rocks he had pointed to and rode slowly away. She stood
with the bundle on the ground next to her for a moment or two, as though she
wasn't sure what to do, and then picked it up in her arms and headed for the
river bank.

God!
She probably couldn't teach a hen to cluck, he thought as he watched her
approach the river, shoes still on, skirt dragging on the ground, brainless as
the baby whose diapers she was no doubt about to wash. He clucked his tongue
and fought the urge to spit out some words that came quickly to mind. Foolish
dolt of a woman. But what did he expect from someone who'd get mixed up with
the Tate gang? He rubbed at his leg, sore from staying in one position so long,
and included himself in the category.

A
few feet from the river the woman sat down on a small rock and removed her
shoes. She had ditched the boots and was wearing soft leather ones. From his
vantage point they looked like Apache moccasins, but he couldn't be sure. He'd
learned from the Havasupai tribe that the Tates had some sort of arrangement
with the Tonto Apache, trading them stolen rifles for various goods and services.
He'd heard, too, that the Apaches had offered them their women. But this was no
Apache whose very white legs were now exposed as she tucked the front of her
skirt up into her waistband and waded into the water with the bundle of dirty
clothes.

He
hadn't seen a white woman's legs, excluding the show this one had given him
when she'd first fallen into the water, in over a year. Fourteen months, if
he'd wanted to be exact. And the way things stood now, he wasn't too sure he'd
ever be between a pair of them again. He could still perform, all right. He'd
checked that out with a willing Hopi woman who had pleasured him right in the
wickiup of the chief's own son. But the bullets that had riddled his body had
left his right leg nearly useless, and he knew that between the scars and the
awkwardness he was some sorry excuse for a man. Certainly no woman's fantasy
anymore.

He
thought about the women who used to throw themselves at him after a winning
ride at the rodeo in Prescott, or the ones who chased after him when he came
into town for a good time. Boys were always complaining that there weren't
enough women in the Arizona Territory, but there were always plenty for him,
waiting for him after a roundup, offering him home-cooked meals, wanting to
wash his clothes....

She
squealed as she went down, and Sloan stifled a laugh. A fly on a horse's ass
had enough sense to seek high ground when crossing a river, but not this woman.
The back hem of her skirt had gotten so wet that the weight of it had finally
pulled her down. She sat in the river, her bottom half soaked, trying to right
herself before the current got a hold of her.

Wilson,
who was apparently bathing farther upstream, came toward her in his wet long
johns, slipping and sliding on the rocky bottom, cursing at the top of his
lungs. By the time he got to the woman, she had begun to drift along with the
water flow, and the river was littered with floating bits of dirty cloth that
Wilson grabbed for as he chased her into the current.

"For
God's sake!" he shouted after her. "Grab on to something!"

"I'm
all right," she yelled back at him, making her way to an outcropping of
rocks. "Get my jeans!"

"Yer
what?" he shouted as he caught up with her, overalls in hand, and dragged
her roughly from the water. She was thoroughly drenched, and even from two
hundred feet above them, Sloan could make out two dark nipples through the
sodden fabric. Or maybe he just imagined it—he wasn't sure.

He
thought maybe he'd be treated to a show, as the two stood there staring at one
another, the water dripping from their clothes, but Wilson just whistled and
his horse came running from where he had left him farther upstream. Pulling the
blanket roll from his saddle, Wilson handed it to the woman and took the
horse's reins. He walked back in the direction from which he and the horse had
come, never looking over his shoulder.

Probably
not Wilson's woman, Sloan figured. And surely someone this inept couldn't
belong to Mason. Harlin? Jeez... she was perfect for Harlin. Two imbeciles.
Weren't there laws about mating morons? The thought slipped his mind when the
woman eased out of her clothes for the second day in a row. She wrapped the
blanket around herself and then tried to retrieve the clothing that had caught
on the rocks.

"Wilson,"
she shouted. "Can you hear me?"

"What
now?" he yelled in response.

"Just
stay where you are until I call you, OK?"

No
answer.

"OK?"

From
where Sloan was, he could see Wilson hiding behind the rocks, not twenty feet
from where the woman stood waiting for an answer. Wilson's face was pressed up
against the rock, and Sloan guessed he had a perfect
view of her
through a crack, but she was unable to see him.

"What's
wrong?" Wilson yelled back, but somehow his voice wasn't all that strong.

"Just
stay there, all right?"

"All
right," he agreed, and Sloan shook his head. Dirty bastard, he thought as
he watched her drop the blanket and run bare-assed to the river, snatching the
cloths as quickly as she could. A scrap of pale blue lay on a rock at the far
side of the river and she waded in to get it. Midstream she leaned her head
back and soaked her hair. Her face was pointed toward the sun, a smile on her
lips, and Sloan hoped she'd open her eyes. He could almost get a good look at
her. He wished he'd bought those binoculars he'd seen as he passed through
Jerome, but he hadn't wanted to attract any attention. He'd only been there for
a few hours, just to pick up some supplies, and no one had recognized him with
his new beard and longer hair. It wouldn't have done to flash a lot of money
around, even in a town like Jerome.

"Get
your stuff and let's go," a voice said, and Sloan saw Wilson standing at
the water's edge, waiting for the woman to get out. The sun glinted off his
gold teeth as he stood with his arms crossed, waiting impatiently. If this was
Harlin's woman, or worse, Mason's, he was about to get into a heap of trouble.

The
woman swam to the cloth, snatched it off the rock, and slipped it around
herself in the water. It was the shirt he'd seen her take off the day before.
How long was it? Sloan tried to remember. Would it cover everything? She'd left
the blanket too far from the water to just grab for it.

"Turn
around, Wilson," she said, and her voice carried up to Sloan's hiding
place. It was a musical voice, filled with laughter, as though she thought her
predicament was
funny. "Come on, Wilson. I'm not getting out until you turn around."

Wilson
didn't say anything. Sloan couldn't tell if he shrugged.

"Please,"
she asked then, more quietly, the playfulness gone from her voice.

From
the ridge, Sloan saw the rider seconds before Wilson heard the horse. Wilson
spun around, reaching instinctively for a gun which wasn't at his hip.

A
low voice rumbled, unintelligible to Sloan, but easily recognizable. It was
Mason. Wilson's hands went down, and he whistled for his horse.

Mason
swung out of the saddle and came to the water's edge, picking up the blanket on
his way. He held it out, his eyes averted, and the woman grabbed it and wrapped
it around her. She then gathered the diapers and other clothing that had
survived her attempts at washing and silently donned her shoes. Wilson mounted
his horse and headed in her direction, but Mason smacked the horse's flank and
with a lurch sent Wilson heading home.

Sloan
watched the conversation between Mason and the woman, he cupping her face to
look in her eyes, she staring back at him. Apparently satisfied, Mason mounted
his horse and contemplated his charge. Then he scooped her up and sat her
across his lap, letting her adjust the blanket that covered her, and headed
slowly in the direction he had come.

Sloan
waited until the three were long gone. Then he rose slowly, awkwardly, using
his good leg and his arms to right himself, and surveyed the area. Now that he
knew where the Tates and their women bathed, it was only a matter of time.

Harlin
was waiting on
the porch with the baby when they returned from the
river. He looked strangely at Mary Grace's attire but made no comment about it.

"She's
worse," he said to Mason.

Mary
Grace slid from the horse, and Harlin caught and steadied her as though she
were a piece of baggage he was unloading. Mason handed her the soggy bag of
laundry and pointed to a clothesline around the side of the house. She wanted
to take the baby with her, but between the wet laundry bag and the blanket
which hid her naked behind, her hands were fully occupied.

The
last time she had hung wet laundry on the line had been the week before she had
left Roscoe, New York, and her family, forever. She'd hung diapers then, too.
Her mother was perpetually pregnant or with a baby on her hip.
My duty,
her
mother had called it.
God's will,
was what her father said.
Babies,
Mary
Grace thought.
What had God to do with it all?