Shotgun Bride (13 page)

G
ig Curry was already behind bars, lying on his cot and moaning in apparent agony, when a pleasantly befuddled Kade arrived at the jail. Rafe sat behind the desk with his feet up, flipping through a stack of wanted posters and ignoring the prisoner completely.

“Doc on the way?” Kade asked, hanging up his hat. He was trying to keep his mind on the business at hand, but it kept straying back to Mandy. The way she rode, like a Comanche on a raid and, Lord, the way she looked in those pants. Until that day, she’d been a pretty woman playing at being a nun, and nothing more. Now, she was an undiscovered territory, a universe ruled by a spirit the likes of which he’d never imagined, let alone encountered face-to-face.

“He needs to sober up a little first,” Rafe said. “He’ll be along presently.”

Kade strolled over to the cell, rounding up these strange emotions the way he would a herd of cattle, driving them into the quiet canyons of his soul. “I guess we’d better have a look,” he said, shrugging back into his skin. It didn’t seem to fit the way it had before. “Make sure this polecat isn’t going to up and die on us or something.”

Rafe shrugged, hoisted himself to his feet, and wandered over. “You want to hold him down, or should I?”

“Doesn’t matter to me.” Kade’s voice was still an echo, coming from somewhere beyond his own head. He renewed his efforts to get back to himself and succeeded, for the most part.

Curry stopped his carrying on and opened one eye, justifiably worried. “Why does anybody have to hold me down?”

Rafe took out his pocketknife, flipped open the blade, and inspected it closely. “There might be some pain involved if there’s a bullet lodged in your leg,” he said companionably. “Don’t you fret, though. It’ll feel real good when the hurting stops.”

Curry sat bolt upright on the cot. “Nobody’s taking a knife to my leg,” he croaked. Sweat broke out on his forehead and along his upper lip.

“Then I reckon you ought to leave off complaining,” Kade said easily as he walked away, aiming for the stove and the coffeepot.

The outlaw stood at the cell door, gripping the bars. “Am I charged with something? Because you can’t keep me here if I ain’t—I know the law!”

Kade took the lid off the coffeepot, peered in, and grimaced. Hell of a day. He’d been beaten by a nun in a horse race, and the whole town would hear about it, too. Now, he had a whiner on his hands. And, oh, yes, a riot was going on inside him.

“For the moment,” he said coolly, and without so much as glancing back at the captive, “you’re charged with being a no-good, snake-bellied son of a bitch. Then there’s attempted murder. When I’ve got something more, I’ll let you know.”

“I done told you I was just hunting rabbits, and not out to hurt anybody,” Curry threw out. “It ain’t like I don’t have any friends, neither. You’ll have them to deal with if you try to keep me here!”

“We’re counting on that,” Rafe said. He was back in the chair, with his boots on the desk again, cleaning his nails with the point of the pocketknife. “We’d surely like to make your friends’ acquaintance, Mr. Curry.”

“It’s that Amanda Rose that’s behind this here breach of justice. She’s been lying about me. Well, let me tell you about her—”

Kade turned from his coffee making, everything inside him gone still as death. “Shut up,” he said, “or I swear to God I’ll dig a bullet out of you whether there’s one in there or not.”

Curry went pale, his throat working visibly as he swallowed. “That just wouldn’t be right, your treating a human being like that.”

“From what I gather,” Rafe observed, “you aren’t any such thing, so I wouldn’t stew over the matter if I were you.”

“This just ain’t Christian,” the outlaw replied.

About that time, Doc Boylen staggered in. His hair was in disarray, and his eyes seemed to be revolving in separate directions. He belched loudly. “I hear you’ve got yourself a wounded prisoner.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kade saw Curry shrink away from the bars.

“Fella’s been caterwauling for fifteen minutes,” Rafe said. “So it must be bad. Might need to cauterize the wound or something. Want me to put a poker in the fire?”

Doc swayed on his feet, fixed both eyeballs on Curry, which took some obvious doing, and sort of swung himself in the direction of the cell. He set his bag on the edge of the desk with a resounding thump, wrestled with the catch for a few moments, and finally got the thing open. “Fresh out of chloroform,” he said.

“Stay away from me, you old quack,” Curry warned.

Doc stiffened his spine, indignant. “Lay down on that cot and shut your trap,” he said. “Rafe, come hold this feller to the bedsprings. He might be about to do some thrashing around. Besides, we don’t want him getting away.”

Grinning, Rafe got up to comply.

Curry let out a squawk when Rafe slammed him down onto the spindly cot, setting the whole thing to creaking mightily, and pinned him there by the shoulders.

Doc ripped the prisoner’s pant leg and inspected the wound. “Bullet barely grazed you,” he said, sounding patently disappointed. “Hell, I’m surprised it even tore your britches.” He paused. “Still, we ought to pour in a little carbolic acid, just to make sure there’s no infection. Kade, fetch me my kit.”

Kade brought the bag, and Doc ferreted out a brown bottle, sealed with a cork.

“Is that the medicine you mean to dose me with?” Curry asked warily.

Doc popped the cork with his teeth and took a couple of noisy swigs. “Nope,” he answered when he was through sputtering, “it’s moonshine.” He put the stopper back and brought out another jug, which apparently contained the carbolic acid. “I reckon this will hurt a mite, son,” he said with a semblance of regret.

“Don’t do it,” Curry begged, flailing. “Don’t you do it!”

“That leg could turn green and fall off if I don’t. Stop carrying on, mister, and we’ll get this over with.”

Curry let out a shriek before the acid ever touched him.

“I do believe you’re the biggest chunk of talking chickenshit I’ve ever come across,” Rafe said. “Course, it takes a coward to shoot at a woman.”

The pit of Kade’s stomach dropped a notch; for a moment, he was back there on the road. He’d seen Curry come out of the brush in the space of a split second and draw a bead on Mandy with his pistol. With no time to draw his own gun, Kade had hurled himself backward off the gelding, hoping to distract the other man just enough to throw his aim off, and the trick, desperate as it was, had worked.

Thank God, it had worked.

“I told you it was an accident,” Curry lamented. “When is this going to stop hurting?”

“Next week sometime, I figure.” Doc was applying a bandage to the man’s thigh. He gave the ends of the long strip of cloth a good yank before tying them off and turning away to walk out of the cell. Rafe released his hold on the outlaw and followed, closing the door with a clang and engaging the lock.

Doc focused on the coffeepot, now perking away on the stove. He belched again, resoundingly, and caught Kade’s eye. “I hear you lost a horse race today. To a female.”

Damned if the bastard wasn’t right, and stone sober into the bargain. The drunken revelry had been an act.

B
uying the dress had been easy enough, but it took some fast-talking on Kade’s part to persuade Minnie to part with the shotgun. She’d promised it to somebody named Jim Dandy and would have to order another one all the way from Tucson if she let that one go. Kade offered her half again as much as she could expect to get, and a deal was struck.

He was on his way out of the mercantile with his purchase when two fine ladies of the community nearly ran him down, in their haste to get inside.

“She’s no better than she should be, that woman,” one blustered.

“Keeping a naked man in a hotel room,” marveled the other. “It’s just not proper, even if he
is
grievously ill.”

Kade, in the act of tipping his hat, decided against it. “Ladies,” he said, with a nod and a note of irony.

They ignored him. “You mark my words, Bertha,” said the one with a single eyebrow and no chin to speak of. “Becky Fairmont has a
past.”

“Everything that is hidden,” replied her friend, with stern certainty, “shall be brought into the bright light of day.”

Kade shook his head, scratched under the back of his hat, and stepped out onto the street. The pinto mare Mandy had ridden in the race the day before waited patiently at the hitching rail, reins dangling. He untied the lead rope, winding it into a loose coil and draping it over the saddle horn. The calico dress, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, protruded from one of the saddlebags.

He led the mare down the street, doing his best to pay no mind to the good-natured taunts that came his way, all of them to do with his losing and Mandy’s winning. Like as not, he’d be a long while living this down. And that was nothing compared to the struggle raging in his spirit.

In front of the hotel, he stopped and just stood there in the street, willing Mandy to appear. It scared him how much he wanted to see her, never mind touch her.

She must have been waiting for him, because she came outside right away. He’d thought he was prepared, but the sight of her fair took his breath away.

She’d forsworn the nun suit for a blue dress he’d seen Emmeline wear a time or two, and her hair was pinned up and soft around her face. She could have passed for a lady without half trying, though it wasn’t the lady in Mandy that called out to Kade. It was something else entirely, something wild and ancient, never burdened with a name.

“I see you’re a man who honors his debts,” she said. She had the decency not to smile, but a glimmer of triumph shone in her blue-green eyes. She seemed unaware of the larger issue, her new power over him, and he was thankful for small favors.

“Absolutely,” he said, sounding normal, and gave his hat brim a gentlemanly tug. He got the parcel from the saddlebags and handed it over, along with the shotgun. Maybe his hands trembled a little, though he liked to think he was mistaken about that part.

Mandy took them both, but she set the package aside on the bench just to the right of the hotel entrance to admire the rifle, holding it ably in both hands. After opening it to make sure it wasn’t loaded, she put one finger through the trigger guard and gave the heavy piece a few showy spins before stopping it at her right hip with a precision Kade doubted he could have equaled himself.

His mouth dropped open.

Mandy smiled and propped the shotgun carefully against the side of the bench, facing him with her hands at her waist. “Thanks,” she said.

“I guess you’ve given up pretending to be a nun,” he said, and promptly felt stupid for stating the obvious.

She was looking at the horse. “You’ve got a good mare there.”

He extended the reins. Inside, he was offering far more, though he didn’t dare consider what.

Mandy stared at him in confusion, and her cheeks turned faintly pink.

“She’s yours, if you want her,” he said, like a kid offering a homemade present.

“Mine?” Mandy looked at once hopeful and wary and stubbornly proud. “That wasn’t part of our deal, was it?”

Kade shrugged. Amazing, all that could stand behind such an ordinary gesture. When the hell was he going to come to his senses? “She needs riding, and a fair amount of attention. On the Triple M, mares aren’t much use, except for breeding.” He paused, reddened. He’d been living with his pa and brothers for too long, he decided. Concepcion’s influence aside, he was about as polished as a porcupine at the far end of a three-day drunk.

“I don’t imagine they are,” Mandy observed, somewhat stiffly, and he knew she wasn’t talking about horses. He could have kicked himself for opening his mouth a second time and stuffing his foot right in it.

She relented and stepped forward with a little smile, taking the reins from his unsteady hands, stroking the animal’s muzzle with a gentle pass of her fingertips. “You sure are a pretty thing,” she told the mare. “What’s your name?”

There was a pause, as if they were both waiting for the horse to answer. Kade fought down a surge of envy, wanting her tender touch and sweet words for himself, though he didn’t reckon he’d cotton to being called pretty.

“She doesn’t have one,” Kade said awkwardly. “There didn’t seem to be any point.”

“Every living creature needs a name,” Mandy commented, still petting the horse, and Kade had to look away for a moment and tell himself to stop thinking and acting like an idiot. “I’m going to call you Sister,” she told the animal. “Sissy for short.”

Kade had no idea why he needed to take issue with the choice, but he did. “Now that’s a damn fool thing to call a horse,” he said. Only then did it occur to him that Mandy would probably skip town, now that she had the means to travel. In a fog of confused admiration, and profound relief that Curry hadn’t killed her, he’d just given her everything she needed to do it.

And, damn, he didn’t want her to go.

“If she’s my horse,” Mandy reasoned lightly, fixing him with a saucy look, “I can call her anything I like.” She reached up to fondle the mare’s ear, and in that moment, he’d have sworn she knew exactly what she was doing to him. “Isn’t that right, Sissy?” She paused and, without looking at him, added, “Did you get anything out of Gig yet?”

Kade felt his shoulders sag a little. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to round Curry up, with Mandy almost getting herself shot in the process, but so far, that waste of hide and hair hadn’t admitted to spitting on the sidewalk, let alone leading the gang that had robbed the U.S. army and left a dozen men dead. The circuit judge was a liberal-minded sort and might believe Curry’s rabbit-huntingstory. If he passed through before the outlaw started talking about his other crimes, like burning down the Fees’ homestead, or they turned up some solid proof, Kade might have to let the son of a bitch go free.

“No,” he admitted.

“Remember that he’s not working alone,” Mandy said in a conversational tone.

Kade hadn’t forgotten. “You don’t know any of these men?”

“I reckon we all know them,” Mandy said, still fussing over the horse. It was one thing to be kind to animals, Kade thought grudgingly, but they oughtn’t to matter more than a man. “Mama always said they were demons, wearing masks. It’s their way to blend in, like a snake on a rock, and strike when it’s least expected.”

Kade resettled his hat. “He might be bluffing about how many there are—I never met anybody who could run off at the mouth like Curry does.”

“He’s too much of a coward to work alone, and he likes having people jump to his tune,” Mandy answered with quiet conviction, and a warning was in her eyes when their gazes met at last. Kade might as well have been standing in a mud puddle and pissing on a lightning bolt as looking into those eyes. The impact was the same. “They’re as real as you and me. Ordinary cowhands, most likely. Drifters and the like. Some of them probably rode in with Mr. Cavanagh’s herd.”

“Curry claims they’ll try to spring him.”

Mandy shivered, though the breeze was warm. “They might, but not because they bear him any particular affection.” Her eyes were so blue, they made something ache inside Kade. “Believe me, to know Gig Curry is to hate him. Those outlaws, they’ll be afraid he’ll turn on them, if you put the pressure on, and start babbling names.”

She knew a hell of a lot about the workings of a gang, it seemed to Kade. One day soon, he’d better be finding out why.