The Outlaw's Kiss (an Old West Romance) (Wild West Brides) (19 page)

“Clara, you can tell me anything. You can say
anything at all to me.”

“No, I can’t. I can’t say this. It’s too much, too
soon.” I wrung my hands, pacing back and forth. “But I can’t help myself! I
can’t keep it from bubbling up every time I see you. The way I feel, I just
can’t keep it quiet anymore, Eli, your being here is making every moment of my
life confusing and filling me with all sorts of wild thoughts.”

“What kind of thoughts? They can’t be any wilder
than the ones I’ve got about you.” He grabbed my shoulders and held me at arms’
length. “I can’t keep it inside anymore, damn it. I’m about to turn myself in
and I might not ever see you again. Hell, the next time I see the sky, it might
be right before I’m hanged by the neck for treason.”

“Don’t say that Eli.” I touched his face, then his
neck. Tears welled up in my eyes.

“All right,” he whispered. “I trust you, Clara. If
you say Swearengen’s word is good, I believe you.”

His lips shook as though there was something else
he wanted to say. “And?” I drew near and kissed his chin.

“And,” he paused.

“I love you, Clara James. I love you more than
I’ve ever loved anyone in the world. And I made a promise to take you to Palo
Duro canyon and show you the sunrise. No matter what, Eli Masterson doesn’t
break his promises.”

Eli kissed me one last time, filling my entire
being with warmth. He clutched me to him, squeezed me tight, and then let me go
and grabbed his hat all at once.

“You stay here,” he said. “There’s something I’ve
got to do.”

I managed to stay strong until he was gone, but as
soon as the door closed behind him, and my Eli was out of sight, I was
immediately overwhelmed.

“I love you too, Eli!” I shouted. “I love you
too!”

He knocked on the door twice. He heard me.

And then he was gone.

October 7, 1878 – Night

Deadwood, Dakota Territory

––––––––

“C
lara! Clara, help! Your father’s been hurt!”

Davis Clark’s voice shattered my light sleep right
before he banged on the door.

I threw on a dressing gown and hurried down the
stairs, terrified of what I’d find. Luckily, when I pulled the door open, cuts
and scrapes were the worst of it. Mr. Clark helped father inside, and to the
chair where he slumped over.

“It was those two ruffians, Goldtooth and Ernest
or Ernie or whatever his name is. While your father and I were having a bite of
supper before heading back to town, they ambushed us. Jeff’s Welsh miners tried
to help, but Eustace shot one of them and sent the other running.” Breath
hitched in Mr. Clark’s chest. His words all jumbled together until he was
utterly tongue tied, and then he waved his hands in the air, frustrated.

“I’m fine, Davis. It’s just some cuts.” Father
looked in my direction. He had two puffy eyes from being boxed, and a number of
cuts and scrapes all over his hands and arms. His shirt was torn, bloody, and
covered in mud.

“Father, you’re bleeding all over the place! Get
that shirt off and I’ll fetch some water. Those cuts might not be serious but
they need to be cleaned.”

He grunted and shifted his weight as he unbuttoned
his clothes. I gathered a pot of heated water and the bottle of whiskey before
going back to the sitting room with a handful of cloth swatches.

I got a touch of liquor on the rag and touched the
nastiest of the cuts. Father hissed and recoiled, but gripped the arm of his
chair and gritted his teeth. “That smarts like hellfire,” he groaned.

“Sorry,” I said, and wiped away another bit of
dried blood, cleaning the cut underneath. That one made him wince a bit less
severely. The vast majority of his wounds were on the surface. They no doubt
hurt a great deal, but hadn’t caused any real damage to the flesh underneath.
It looked almost like he’d rolled around in a bramble patch, and had nothing but
a bunch of bloody scratches to show for his effort.

“What happened?” I asked when I had him mostly
wiped down, and the most ghastly of his injuries cleaned and bandaged. “They
just appeared and terrorized you?”

Father wheezed as he caught his breath. “Well,
that’s close to true. They came up and began to demand the claim. They said if
I didn’t sell to them at a price so low it wouldn’t cover the trip home, they’d
have my heart on a plate. I thought that was a bit over-dramatic, but
nevertheless.” He took a deep breath. “Will you be so kind as to pour me a
measure of that? My nerves need to be calmed.”

I did as he asked and he swallowed the whiskey in
one gulp. I poured him a second glass, and one for Mr. Clark, who sipped at
his.

After a moment of silence, one of father’s cuts
began to weep again and I’d had enough. “That’s it,” I said, standing up. “I’m
going to see Mr. Swearengen. He said to come to him if we needed any help,
especially regarding those two, and we very plainly do.”

“Now, now, Clara, calm down.” Father waved his
hand dismissively. “That’s ridiculous. You’re not going to that den of whores
and sin at night. It bothers me enough that you go at all, even when it’s
abandoned in the middle of broad daylight. I’ll not have you traipsing about with
all kinds of grotesquery on display.”

“Then
you
go,” I said. “But I’m going too. Mr.
Swearengen knows me. He likes me – for whatever reason – enough to tell me to
see him if anything happened, and that’s just what is going to happen.”

Ignoring me momentarily, father’s hand fell upon
the letter from Francis. I’d meant to put it somewhere else, but forgot in the
heat of the moment. As he looked it over, he shuddered.

“It’s happening,” he said. “We’re losing the bank.
If that bank goes, everything goes, Clara.” He turned to Mr. Clark. “I’m sorry
for putting on such a show.”

“Not at all, Jeff. We’re friends. Friends stand
beside one another.”

Father’s eyes grew watery. “I’m sorry to you too,
Clara. I’ve ruined everything.”

“What? No you haven’t father, don’t be silly, I’m
in...” I caught myself and cleared my throat. “Nothing is ruined at all. You’ve
got your claim perched on the edge of a massive return. All that needs be done
is to get it started. Eli said that if you got a mining operation going, you’d
make the million in a week.”

Father’s hand shook so hard that the letter
rustled in his grasp before he laid it on the table. “But that,” he said,
“presumes a mine. I don’t have the first idea where to start. I’ve got all
these people offering to help, but I’m so lost I don’t know what the first step
is.” He paused for a moment. “Where
is
Eli, anyway?”

“Mr. Masterson is here?” Davis Clark looked
around. “How did he –”

“No,” I said. “He went back to courthouse and
turned himself in. You two missed all that excitement by being hard at work.”

As soon as it was mentioned, it was gone. I was
glad that talk didn’t linger on Eli, for fear I’d break down into a mess.

“Clara,” father reached for my hand. “I promised
your mother that I’d take care of you. I told her that I would keep you safe
and happy and here we are. I’ve dragged you to a hell-hole in the middle of a
forest a thousand miles from civilization. I can’t believe what I’ve done.” He
fell silent, cradling his hands in his head. “And now I’m ruined. If this mine
doesn’t produce, we’re broke.”

I stroked the back of his hand. “Everything is
fine, father. Everything will work out. It always does. That’s what Eli said,
and I trust him.”

Father grunted a laugh. “Everything works out,
huh? Then explain this.” He fluttered his fingers and waved a hand in a
half-circle. “We need to get out of here, Clara. We’re strangers in an
unfriendly land. We’re pilgrims who’ve wandered into a village of cannibals,
and now we need to escape. We need to get back to New York, to what we know.”

“I don’t want to go back,” I said, interrupting
him. “There’s nothing for me there.”

I squeezed his hand, and he held on tight. “What
do you mean you don’t want to go back? What do you mean, Clara?”

I gulped. “I mean, I’ve found something here that,
uh, well. Some
one.
”

Mr. Clark cleared his throat. “My claim is
busted,” he said. “I can’t make back my investment. There’s gold, but nowhere
near enough. For a time, I was convinced that if I went deep enough, I’d find a
vein, but there’s nothing. I’m prepared to take your offer to sell it to
Swearengen and run your claim.” He plucked his bowler off and sat it on his
knee. “Just tell me what I need to do, and it’s done.”

Father’s eyebrow quirked. “At ten percent? And
that ridiculous wagon?”

“Twelve,” Mr. Clark said, eyes narrowing. “Don’t
make me go up to fifteen.”

A smile spread across my father’s face. He
extended his hand. “You’re a life saver, Davis. We’ve got a deal at eleven
percent.”

“Ah! You almost got me, you old serpent.”

By then, somehow, after that flurry of activity,
they were both laughing. “What do we do now?” father asked. “I suppose there’s
the business of a contract, and then signing over the title, but that can’t
possibly be done here, can it?”

I pursed my lips. “Didn’t Mr. Star say he also
functions as the camp’s notary? Perhaps we could call on him and have the
papers drawn up?”

“So late at night?” Mr. Clark shook his head. “I
wouldn’t think of dragging someone out of bed at this hour. The irony, of
course, of my saying that isn’t lost on me.”

“No,” I said. “It has to be tonight. If those men
were willing to do this to father out of some desperate need to intimidate him,
I hate to think what will happen if their demands continue to go unanswered.
Whatever Mr. Swearengen has in mind must be better than just sitting by and
idly letting them do as they wish while we wait for Mr. Star to awaken and
politely get his attention. And anyway, you’re both friends with him. He won’t
mind doing a good turn.” I tapped my fingers impatiently on top of the mantle.

“Another thing is that U.S. Marshall coming to
examine the fire. If Eli’s still in custody when he comes, well, I hate to
think what would happen,” I said, sitting down.

“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this,” father
said. “But here we are. And I’ll be damned if I’m letting you go to the Gem,
Clara. Davis and I will take care of this. You stay here where it’s safe.”

“Father, you’re forgetting something.”

“Hmm?”

“Mr. Swearengen told
me
to come to him if
we needed help. He may be generally as trustworthy as a rattlesnake, but he’s
very clear when giving orders, or offering assistance. I think it best if I go,
at least to introduce you to him formally, no matter what damage you think it may
do to my dignity.”

A dark look passed across my father’s eyes, but he
knew that I had the right of things. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t be surprised
if I make you shield your eyes in the face of some awful display.”

I smiled, trying not to laugh. “Yes, of course.
I’d hate for my propriety to be offended. Come on,” I urged both men to the
door. “The way to the Gem will be relatively safe, owing to the curfew, but I’d
rather not be out any more than we have to be, given the danger you’re in.”

I went first, opening the door and holding it.

“Savvy girl you’ve got here, Jeffrey,” I heard Mr.
Clark say. “I do believe I’d be more afraid of getting on her bad side than I
would Swearengen’s, or Rawls’s.”

Father paused for a moment then slapped his friend
on the back, and both of them laughed as we made our way to town.

*

T
o say there was a stench hanging in the air on the
bottom floor of The Gem is the greatest sort of understatement. Men lay in
pools of their own wet filth, in all sorts of stages of drunkenness. One
person, who I vaguely recognized, had made it partway to the second floor of
the Gem before pitching over the rail, and apparently going straight to sleep
half-standing with his knees buckled.

A quick glance around the room revealed neither of
the women I hoped to see, nor Mr. Swearengen. After dark, when the only thing
to do was, apparently, head to this palace of vice, the place I’d only visited
during morning lulls had a wild, raving-mad life all its own.

“Clara? That you?” A familiar voice called from
somewhere behind the bar. “Over here!” It was Tammy, I saw, and I breathed a
sigh of relief. Both my father and Mr. Clark were trailing behind me. “What’re
you doing here? This ain’t a place for decent people.”

“We need to see Mr. Swearengen,” I said, straining
to shout over the noise.

“Whassat?” She cupped her hand around her ear.

“Mr. Swearengen,” I shouted. “We need to see him!”

“Oh, Al, you shoulda said so.” Tammy made a
gesture. “Miss Gretchen’s over by the stairs, she’ll take you up.”

I turned to see Gretchen motioning us over,
grabbed father’s hand and dragged him through the writing mass of flesh and
humanity, dodging many things I chose not to look too long at before avoiding.

As soon as we were close enough, Gretchen took my
hand, waved to my father and Mr. Clark and ushered us up to Mr. Swearengen’s
office. She knocked three times.

“What is it?” he said, with a voice that dripped
with impatience.

“Visitors here, three of ‘em. You’ll want these.”

“Christ,” he swore, and took an impatient breath.
“Send them in.”

The door closed behind us with a bang, and
suddenly, only a low din of noise could be heard. “It’s quiet in here,” I idly
remarked.

Mr. Swearengen nodded. “That’s the value of a good
door seal. Did you bring me a title?” His eyes fell on my father and Mr. Clark.
“I suppose I should be asking you instead of the girl.”

Father stuck his hand out, clutching an off-white
sheet of paper. Mr. Swearengen sat back, reclining in his chair and waiting for
father to deliver the paper. “Right there is fine,” he said, tapping a space on
his desk. Slowly, he unfolded his reading glasses and looked over the page.