Without Words (3 page)

“May I please have what was in Rufus’s pockets to buy....”

“No.” He was looking over her shoulder, reading her request before she finished it. He pulled the paper from under her hand, crumpled it, and threw it in the waste can with dozens of other discarded bits of paper. Having answered her question to his own satisfaction, he went back to his own message.

Hassie rolled the pencil back and forth in her fingers. She could use another piece of paper and argue. She put the pencil down. A man who said no in that tone wouldn’t listen even if she could used honeyed words. Better to admit she didn’t want to buy supplies, didn’t want to go back to the empty farm by herself. Any argument could wait until after she saw Reverend Lyons.

The bounty hunter finished his message, handed it to the telegraph operator, and paid.

“I don’t expect an answer until tomorrow, but if I’m wrong, I’ll be at the hotel tonight.”

Hassie followed him out to the horses, worrying. She had no money for a hotel. He didn’t think she was staying with him, did he? But where could she stay?

Before the next hour passed, Hassie did have money. She had money the hardware man paid for the tools from the farm, money the gunsmith paid for Rufus’s pistol. And according to the bounty man, she was going to have money from selling Brownie.

“You aren’t going to get much for the horse,” he said, “but no matter whether the preacher can take you in and find you a place, or how things work out, having a little cash is better than not. Since you can’t exactly negotiate, I’ll sell it for you.”

Hassie stared at him, aware for the first time Brownie was hers. So was the farm, so was Cyrus’s still. Not that she wanted it, but maybe someone would buy it. Or the whiskey.

As if he could read her mind, he said, “Too bad we couldn’t have brought the jugs of ’shine along. They’d probably bring more than this nag.”

Brownie was not a nag. She was too thin was all. Enough food....

Hassie really looked at the bounty hunter’s horses for the first time. Not only were they in good flesh but they had small shapely ears, big eyes, and their heads didn’t hang too large for their necks. They had good bone and feet, but not huge round bones and platter feet.

Like the man himself, his horses were everything fine. Like her, Brownie was just a problem for someone like him to solve.

Blinking against tears, Hassie nodded as if he had asked her opinion instead of telling her what he was going to do. He walked into the gloom of the stable and found the owner.

“Bret Sterling,” he said. “And this is Mrs. Cyrus Petty. She’s recently widowed and needs to sell her horse.”

Sterling. Of course he had a name like that. Fine horses, fine man with a name that suited perfectly.

After all, her name suited too, didn’t it? Petty. He was Sterling, and she was Petty. Hassie crossed her arms and pretended Mr. Bret Sterling was selling a pathetic horse of his own for next to nothing.

The stableman didn’t want Brownie.

“You should pay me to take it,” he said.

“A few weeks of decent feed, and she’ll be fat and sassy,” Mr. Bret Sterling countered.

“Fat and worthless. Look at her. There’s more draft blood there than anything else and it’s mixed with bangtail.”

“So sell her as one that can pull a cart and carry a saddle too.”

“Anything can do that. The best use for this one would be dog food.”

Hassie gasped and hugged Brownie around the neck. Mr. Bret Sterling gave her a disgusted look. “What if she came with four gallons of good whiskey?” he said.

“Does she?” the stableman said suspiciously.

After that, negotiations progressed swiftly. Hassie hated sending Brownie to an unknown fate, but then that was what was happening to her too, wasn’t it?

She shoved the money into her coat pocket and signed the bill of sale the stableman made out with her full name—Hassie Ahearne Petty.

Let the boun—no—let Bret see her real name, the name she had been born with. She could call him by his given name because he would never know she was doing it, and it served him right for cursing.

He left his horses at the stable too, pulled her carpetbag and a leather valise of his own out of the panniers, and shouldered his saddlebags, not the ones tied behind his saddle but ones from the packs. Before she could wonder about that, he said, “It looks like we’re stuck with each other for a while longer, Mrs. Petty. I know this town has a decent restaurant. Let’s go see what the hotel’s like.”

After one last regretful look back at Brownie, Hassie followed Bret down the street. At least Yellow Dog had turned back at the edge of town. He’d be better off out in the woods. People in town wouldn’t be kind to a skinny stray.

By the time they reached the hotel, Hassie’s heart thudded in her ears. She fingered the bills in her pocket. How much did a hotel room cost?

Bret Sterling didn’t think she was going to share a room or a bed with him, did he? Because she wasn’t. She’d buy supplies and carry them all the way back to the farm on her back first.

The big white hotel poked into the sky three stories high, higher than any other building in town. As they approached the front door, boots echoing on the boards of the verandah, Hassie tried to duck behind Bret, but he opened the hotel door and waited for her to enter first, gesturing when she didn’t move right away.

Inside all was silent, hushed. Even her cracked old boots made no noise on the carpeted floor. The last time Hassie had seen anything as elegant as this hotel, she and Mama had still been in Philadelphia.

Striped paper in pretty blues covered the walls. Lamps with beautiful glass globes hung in sconces on the wall. Stuffed chairs. Polished tables with big ash trays. Live plants in pretty pots.

The people who owned this hotel were not going to rent a room to a woman in a patched coat and patched dress who didn’t even own a proper hat.

Bret cupped a hand around her elbow and pushed her right to the gleaming desk straight ahead. He dropped their cases and smacked his hand down on a little silver dome. The ding of the bell sounded loud in the quiet lobby.

A gray haired, bespectacled man came through a door behind the desk, still buttoning his coat over his round belly. “Welcome to the Werver Hotel,” he said, smiling. “Dennis Reston at your service. Do you need a room for you and your wife?”

A knot appeared at the hinge of Bret’s jaw, prominent right through the beard. Of course he wouldn’t like anyone thinking he was married to the likes of her. Hassie looked down, noticed a loose button on her coat, and switched to studying the crystal inkwell on the desktop.

“Two rooms,” Bret said.

The man’s smile changed to something Hassie didn’t like.

“Let me see what we have available in adjoining rooms.”

“I don’t care if they’re a mile apart. I do care if they’re clean,” Bret said, his voice close to a growl.

Hassie let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. After Bret signed the register, he said, “We’re going to get something to eat across the street. Can you have a bath ready when we get back? Two actually. First Mrs. Petty, then me.”

Hassie only took in Mr. Reston’s reply and mention of the cost with half an ear. A bath. She remembered bathing in a tub of hot water as a little girl, but after Papa died hot baths disappeared like so many other things. Here in Missouri the only submerged bathing was in summer in the creek.

Bret took possession of two keys to rooms that were side by side after all. He walked right into the room he said would be hers as if he had the right, which he did since he paid. Small, narrow bed, but a rag rug on the floor and curtains on the window. Hassie looked around uncritically, almost unable to believe the room was hers.

Not until Bret yanked back the bed clothes and lifted the pillow did she realize what he was doing—checking for bedbugs. She bit her lip to hold back a laugh. If Mr. Reston had climbed the stairs with them, he’d be properly insulted.

When Bret looked up from the bed, Hassie held out as much money as she knew the room and the bath cost.

He shook his head. “Keep it. It’s not much, and you’re going to need it. Figure it’s part of my penance.”

Hassie stared at the door after he closed it behind him. Penance? Did he feel guilt about Rufus? Nothing he had said or done indicated anything but aggravation over feeling obliged to deal with her, yet taking care of her, like burying Cyrus, was decent. More than most would do.

She was the one who should feel guilty. She had done her best for Cyrus but couldn’t pretend to mourn. His death had only made her afraid for herself.

She didn’t mourn Rufus either. At first his return had seemed like Providence—fresh meat, help with his father those last days when her back ached from caring for a man too sick to even turn over by himself, the promise of enough money for supplies until the weather warmed, help with burying—but what would Rufus have demanded in return?

The deaths and decisions of others had changed her life in an instant many times before, but never for the better. Maybe this time would be different. So far it was. Rummaging through her bag for clean clothes, she shoved down fear of tomorrow, determined to enjoy a restaurant meal that wouldn’t leave her hungry for more, a real bath, and a night alone in this pretty room.

Hassie answered a knock on the door, expecting to see Bret come to hurry her along. Instead a sullen young girl in a dark blue dress and white apron thrust a pitcher of water at her.

“Here. Mr. Reston said to bring you this.”

The pitcher was cold enough to the touch the water inside had to be frigid. The girl muttered under her breath as she left. The only words Hassie caught were “not waiting on the likes of you.” Hassie poured the cold water into the wash basin, not really minding.

The bath waiting for Hassie when she and Bret returned from the restaurant was barely lukewarm, but wonderful for all that. She was ready to climb in, grateful for the chance, but she didn’t get a chance. Bret checked her bath water for temperature just as he had checked her room for bugs. The look on his face after he dipped his fingers in the tub must have cooled the water another ten degrees.

Mrs. Reston, a heavyset, red-faced woman, remedied the situation herself, complaining about “that girl” the whole time.

“You’re Julia Grimes’ daughter, aren’t you? The one who came out here with her when she married Ned. Your father was some Irishman,” Mrs. Reston said when she had finished with the bath.

Hassie nodded, eager to get into the tub before the water cooled again.

“The one who can’t talk.”

Since Mama had only brought one daughter to Missouri, that didn’t seem to require an answer. Hassie sat on the chair next to the tub and removed her boots, hoping Mrs. Reston would take the hint and leave.

“You married Cyrus Petty when Ned lit out for Texas, but now you’re here with this Sterling fellow.”

Hassie rubbed the base of the finger of her left hand where women fortunate enough to have a wedding ring wore one, then pointed up. Of course since they were indoors that meant pointing at the ceiling not the heavens.

Mrs. Reston rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, frowned, and finally said, “Dead?”

Hassie nodded again, her fingers on the buttons at the high neck of her dress that she wasn’t really going to undo until the woman left. After a final assessing look at the tub and at Hassie, Mrs. Reston took her leave.

The water was beautifully, decadently hot. Hassie sank down to her chin with a small moan of pleasure.

She wanted to stay in that tub until her fingers and toes wrinkled and the water didn’t have one degree of warmth left, but after a few minutes of self-indulgence, she scrubbed, washed her hair, rinsed, and regretfully dried off and dressed. She didn’t want to make Mr. Bret Sterling wait for his bath when he was paying for both of them.

Unsure if she should drain the tub herself, Hassie cracked the door and peeked out. The sullen maid shoved the door open so hard Hassie barely avoided a black eye. “It’s about time,” the girl said as she pushed past into the room.

That answered the question about whether to drain the tub, wipe it clean, or try to help in any other way. Hassie started down the hall, her steps faltering as she rounded the corner and Bret straightened from where he leaned against the wall.

She had no reason to fear him. He wasn’t going to shoot her. He hadn’t even repeated his threat to shoot Yellow Dog when he followed them to town.

Without Mr. Bret Sterling, bounty hunter, she would still be at the farm, hoping Rufus would leave soon and really give her ten dollars, worrying what would happen if he didn’t. Without Bret Sterling, her stomach would not be pleasantly full of good food, her skin would not be flushed and warm from time in a hot bath, and she would not be about to spend the night in a room with curtains on the window, a rug on the floor, and pale green paper on the walls.

“I’ll walk you to your room,” he said.

She smiled at him hesitantly, not surprised he didn’t smile back. Did he ever smile? He’d be less frightening if he did, but she couldn’t even imagine a smile lifting the hard, grim lines of his face or changing the rough look of him to something gentler. There was something closed down and joyless about him as if anger simmered under the surface.

He walked beside her across the hotel lobby. In coat and hat his height made her feel small. Now that he wore neither, his height was less threatening. Tipping her head back a little, she could meet his eyes, although she didn’t want to meet those cold eyes, or study his features—like his mouth, a nice mouth really, just wide enough between strong jaws, firm lips. Lips set in an unyielding straight line of course.

The men she was used to were thin, all bone and tendon held together with knobby joints. Bret Sterling carried no extra bulk, but he wasn’t skinny. Broad shoulders tapered to narrow hips and long legs.

Something about the way he had looked leaning against the wall, the way he straightened when he saw her, told her she’d been right to think she couldn’t dodge around the kitchen table fast enough to stop him catching her.