Claudia Dain Page 31

  "Jacques?" Shaughn asked.

  "Of course, Jacques! With a name like Scullard, what else would it be but Jacques? I would have figured out who he was days ago if you'd only given me the right name. Why did you have to keep calling him Jack Skull?"

  Jack looked over at Shaughn and said, "Yeah, why'd you tell her my name was Skull?"

  Shaughn coughed a few times and then with a sweep of his hand said, "Come on in and have a drink. It's too hot a day to stand around outside."

  It was overcast and breezy, but the whole lot of them went into the saloon.

  "You all just sit while I go on back and dish you up some food; I've been aching to feed this boy again for years and it'll be something hot this time, Jacques, and better than a box lunch!"

  "Thank you, ma'am," came a round of amused male voices. Grey and Blakes were used to it; Jack just seemed to attract this sort of thing from most women. It appeared he'd started young, judging by Martha's comments.

  Anne followed Martha to the small room at the back that served as kitchen. The Mustang didn't serve food as a rule, not like the Demorest, but if a customer got hungry and wanted a little something, it seemed a shame to let him walk out the door when Martha could throw together something that would keep him satisfied and spending his money in the Mustang. Why should the Demorest get all the business? It had been Martha's idea and Shaughn hadn't said a word against it, especially as she was doing all of the work.

  "How can I help?" Anne asked.

  Martha was already pulling out the chicken she'd made that morning; it wasn't quite hot, but she could make a nice gravy and it would only take a few minutes for the corn bread to warm....

  "Thank you, Anne, I've almost got this together, but if you'd just divide those chickens into man-sized servings while I stick this corn bread in. And there's a fresh apron hanging behind the door on a hook."

  Anne found it and tied it on, then picked up a knife and began dividing the chickens into parts.

  "So, you knew Jack's mother and father," Anne said, probing for information the way she was probing the chicken. "What were they like?"

  "Oh, nice folks," Martha said, heating up the stock for the gravy. "Such a tragedy."

  "What happened?"

  "Shot dead, both of them, and their stock stolen; horses mostly. That man had a knack with horses and could get them to do most anything. He had a real eye, too. Folks around there respected him, sought him out when they were looking to buy. And you know the talk about horse dealers, not an honest one in a hundred, but he was that one. Fine man."

  "And his wife?"

  Martha smiled in memory and stirred in some flour with the heated chicken stock. "Pretty as daylight. Devoted mother. Friendly when you came to call and had a free hand when it came to lending. We shared a cup of coffee a time or two, sitting in that little house. Her table was fine, walnut with scrolled legs; she said it came all the way from Louisiana. That's how it came out about her family being from there. His, too."

  "Pretty as daylight? Was she blond?"

  "No, hair black as pitch with eyes to match. His hair was lightish and the bluest eyes I ever saw. Jacques takes after his pa more 'n' his ma, I'd say, though there's some of both in him."

  "It's strange, isn't it, that he'd marry a woman with the same name as his ma?" Anne asked.

  Martha shrugged. "Anne's not so uncommon a name and hers, I think, was Annette, though no one called her that, 'cept maybe her man."

  Anne flicked back a curl of her dark hair and pondered. It couldn't be more than coincidence. Martha was right; Anne was a common name. Besides, she'd courted Jack, not the other way around. Of course, he was the one who'd insisted they marry, but a man wouldn't marry a woman just because of her name.

  "Anne, that bread smells done," Martha said, whisking the gravy with a sharp hand.

  Anne pulled herself out of her doubts and bent to take the corn bread from the oven. Martha poured gravy over the chicken. Anne cut the corn bread and put it on a platter. Arms full, they carried the food in to the men.

  The talking had been quiet, but it stopped when they came in. They must have been talking about Bill's murder.

  They had been.

  Martha went back to fetch plates and forks and then the eating began. The men were disinclined to talk. Martha wasn't.

  "So how was it, growing up in New Orleans? I always wondered how a little boy as used to lonesome as you were would do in a city like that."

  Jack finished chewing his chicken and took a long swallow of beer to wash it down before he answered. "I did all right."

  "And your folks, they got the letter I sent off?"

  "They knew I was coming, yeah." Jack broke off a hunk of corn bread and buttered it heavily.

  "So, growing up in the city like that, how'd you end up out West? I wouldn't have thought they'd let you go, especially after what happened to your pa and ma."

  "Oh, they let me go all right. Didn't seem to be no problem with that. And I wasn't in Louisiana all that long; I've been back home awhile now." Jack picked up a leg and began chewing on it.

  Things didn't seem to have turned out too well with his family in New Orleans. Anne wished Martha would let it lie. Martha kept talking.

  "Is that right?" she said, holding the platter for Grey at the other end of the table. Jack was on his third piece of corn bread and seemed unwilling to pass it down.

  "Well, what you been doing with yourself these last years? I suppose you fought."

  "Yes, ma'am," he answered, his eyes on his plate.

  "Ma, leave him be," Shaughn said from behind the bar. There wasn't a man alive who wanted to talk about the war. He sure didn't want the man who'd stolen up Anne to talk about it, maybe impressing her by his bravery or some such.

  "Leave him be? When I only want to know how the sweetest boy in all the world has gotten on?" Martha argued, hands on hips.

  Grey choked on a piece of corn bread.

  Blakes slugged him on the back a time or two until Grey pushed him off.

  "You want to know what he's been up to, I'll tell ya, Miz O'Shaughnessy." Grey grinned.

  Jack looked up from his plate with a scowl. He might have even growled. Grey ignored him.

  "I met him in the Texas Rangers, signed up the same day and worked with him more than not during the years before the war. Got disbanded then and it was the biggest mistake that Yank government ever made. Outlaws going wild down there now."

  "They'll start it up again," Blakes said, putting down his beer. "They'll see the need."

  "Damn straight they will," Grey said. "But they'd better get on it quick."

  "The Texas Rangers," Martha said. "That's a hard life."

  "Hard times need hard remedies, ma'am, and besides, it warn't too much rougher than what he'd been doing," Grey winked. "Running cattle up and down the county."

  "Really? Did you ever come to Abilene before now, Jacques?"

  Jack wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yes, ma'am, I did."

  "Started cowboying when he was little bigger than a calf, the way I hear it." Grey grinned broadly. "What were you, Jack, ten, eleven?"

  "Shut up, Grey," Jack said, looking down at his empty plate.

  "That's when he met up with Blakes here," Grey jerked a thumb at Blakes. "Both of 'em just boys, out running cattle on the range with a quick horse under 'em. A boy's dream."

  "It's a dream if you need to eat," Blakes said. "And we did."

  "Just boys..." Martha said. "But why would you leave your family?"

  "Wanted to come West, ma'am," Jack said. "West is where home is."

  "But your family, didn't they mind?"

  Jack leaned back on the two rear legs of his chair. "Didn't seem to."

  "And what about you, Mr. Blakes? Did your family know what you were about?"

  "No family for me to worry about, ma'am," he said. “Not this side of the Atlantic, anyway. Got some family back in England that I’ve heard some about, but I’ve never seen �
�em.”

  Anne listened and heard all that was not being said by these men who had lived so hard. Jack had seen his parents murdered, been sent to family that didn't know him and clearly hadn't wanted him, made his way West somehow and gotten a dangerous job with long hours and short pay as a cowhand, joined the Texas Rangers, who didn't take just anybody and where the work was more dangerous than any payment could cover, and then fought in the Civil War. And when that was done, he'd started hunting bounty, looking for the worst men the country had to offer to get them behind bars or swinging from a well-deserved rope.

  Martha was right. Jack had turned out well.

  Jack had been taking care of himself in a callous world for most of his life and there he sat, soft-spoken, self-assured, self-reliant. And alive. He'd grown into a man.

  Her life had been nothing like his. She'd been sheltered and protected from all that could have hurt her; she'd had her share of troubles, but she hadn't had to face them alone. In fact, she hadn't had to face much of anything at all. And she suddenly knew why.

  Miss Daphne.

  When her grandfather had walked out, the final man in the family to do so, her grandmother had held her head up and forced each of them to do the same. Her grandmother had held them all together. Her grandmother had given them a home when her father had left her and her mother alone for the last time in that small town in Missouri. Her grandmother had seen they had a roof and food and clothes. And pride.

  Her grandmother was a hard woman, but she'd seen hard things happen to her children, and no matter what else a person could say about her, and there was a lot, she'd kept her family together and she'd given them a home.

  Anne had known a home and family. Jack had known neither, not since the age of four, except in dreams. Unwelcome dreams.

  Anne felt a hard, cold knot of silent resentment ease up inside her. She hadn't had it so bad. If nothing else, Miss Daphne had done the best she could and if it wasn't quite what Anne would have wanted for herself, she was going to be grateful for what she had, thankful for the effort that had been put in on her account. That's all a person could do, his best. To want more was asking for misery.

  And hadn't she done that, too?

  Wanting what no one could give her. Her ma couldn't make her pa come home. No one could do that, not even her.

  It was time to grow up.

  She was a married woman now. She looked over at Jack, at the still, quiet strength of Jack, and she let the sight of him fill her up. If he left, he left. She couldn't make him do a thing; the only person she could control was herself and she was none too good at doing that. Jack was here, now, and she was going to enjoy him for as long as he was around. Somehow, she'd find the strength to live when he moved on and moved off. Somehow.

  She wasn't going to think about her pa anymore. She wasn't going to wonder if he would come. She wasn't going to wish for anything about that train, either getting on or getting off. She was going to stay where Jack was. She was going to choose to—

  The whistle of the noon train from Lawrence pierced the air. Anne jerked in her seat and looked over at Jack. He was looking right back at her.

  "Train's late today," Martha said. "It's half past noon at least."

  Sheriff Lane was looking at her. Jack was looking at her. Shaughn O'Shaughnessy was looking at her. Grey and Blakes ended up looking at her because everyone else was. The train was in. She was supposed to go meet it. They all knew that. It was what she did. She met the train and no explanation was necessary.

  It was time to grow up, to leave behind childish dreams of finding her father or uncle or grandfather climbing down off the train, but what harm did it do? It was just a train. It didn't mean much. It was more habit than wish.

  Anne rose from her seat and tucked in her chair. Martha's apron was still draped over her and she took that off, laying it over the back of the chair. Jack looked into her eyes, his blue eyes searching, measuring, asking...? She didn't know what; maybe she didn't want to know. It was enough that she had seen the shadow of pain and then the shield of resignation drop down over him.

  How many times had he had to do that in his life? Face the pain of something he couldn't change and then find the strength to resign himself to it? Too many times. Maybe even one time too many.

  But what could she do about it now? Everyone expected her to go.

  It was just a train.

  Jack looked down into his beer and took a long swallow. Anne left, her boots making a hollow sound on the wood floor, echoing after her when she was gone.

  He stayed put and let her face her shadows alone.

  Jack drained his glass and let Grey carry the conversation. He and Lane were talking about the Rangers, with Blakes throwing in his two bits every now and again. He let them talk on around him and without him. He had nothing to say.

  Anne had left to go meet the train. Again. Whatever it was that gnawed on her was still chewing and there didn't seem to be a thing he could do about it. Hell, if she wanted to keep meeting the train, looking for the lost men in her life, he could hardly blame her. If he thought his mama or pa might appear on a train coming through someday, he'd meet every damned one. It was the least he would do and he wasn't going to fault Anne for still having the need of them even when she had him lock, stock, and barrel. A gal needed more than a husband in her life to love and fuss over. If she did love him.

  She'd never said she loved him.

  But a gal would hardly marry a man if she didn't.

  Unless that gal was Anne, a woman who said yes every time she ought to be saying no.

  Jack scraped his chair getting up. Grey and Lane ignored him. Blakes looked up at him, catching his eye; Jack shook his head. Blakes stayed put and lit a cheroot, nodding as Jack walked out of the Mustang Saloon.

  He wasn't going to let it get to him. A woman was allowed to marry a man without his digging through her reasons, not when he figured more than a few would bite him where he was soft. Anne was his wife, that was permanent; she'd figure that out eventually. And love was something that could grow between a man and a woman, if they tried hard enough, and he was going to try. He was going to get what his parents had had between them if it took all his life, and he was going to get it with Anne. Even if the only thing she seemed dead sure of was that he'd leave her someday.

  Jack walked away from the depot and toward the cemetery. It wasn't a long stretch of the legs to get there and the day was soft with spring. Still no rain, though there'd been dew on the ground that morning; that should have put a smile on Miss Daphne's face if nothing else would.

  The cemetery was on a small rise. Tucker's grave had already been dug; he was due to go in later that day. Jack walked right by that open wound in the soil and went to a small wooden cross planted in fresh-turned ground.

  He stood there awhile, ignoring the sound of the train steaming up to go, trying to block out his thoughts about what was happening in the heart of his wife down there at the depot.

  A breeze came up sudden and he lifted his face to it. A flock of birds skimmed over the ground in a swarm half a mile off, silent hunters.

  The wood on the cross was raw, unweathered, and splintered. He laid his hand on the wood and spoke into the wind.

  "I'll come every day I'm in town. That's a promise. You'll not be forgotten, Mary Hopkins."

  With that simple vow, he was finished. Jack walked off down the rise, leaving the sight of the birds at their hunt behind him. Leaving Mary until tomorrow.

  He made his way back into Abilene, thinking about Anne, about his folks, thinking about everything but the killings. It was then, when his thoughts were floating free, that he remembered the horse. He'd seen the tracks of that horse, right in Abilene. Seen it just days ago when he was walking Anne to the train. He knew where that horse was stabled. Powell's.

  With long strides, Jack walked into Powell's stable. The old man was sitting on an old chair in the shadows, smoking his pipe. He jumped to his feet when Jack walke
d up to him.

  "What you want?" Powell snapped.

  "I want to look over your stock, that's what I want," Jack said.

  "I don't need you coming in here—"

  "What you need is to shut your mouth and do what I'm telling you," Jack said past all patience. "You got a horse in here who's heavy on his right rear foot."

  Powell just stood there, his pipe hanging from his fingertips, his mouth open.

  Jack gave up on getting any help and went to each stall, running his hands over each horse by way of hello. "You got any stock out? They all here?" he asked.

  He pulled out the black and led him around. It wasn't the black.

  "Anyone use the sorrel besides Mrs. Halloway?" Jack asked. "Answer me, Powell!"

  "No," Powell said, tightening his grip on his pipe. "And you got no call to be coming in here and messing with my animals. I got a responsibility—"

  "You got that killer's horse in here, that's what you got!" Jack said on a bark of command.

  "Hell, no," Powell said. "I ain't got no such."

  "Hell, yes; I've seen the tracks."

  Jack pulled out the dun and led it around by the halter. The right rear walked heavy. It was the dun. The shoe was a bit off and it was throwing off the gait.

  "Who hires the dun?"

  Powell just looked at him, his pipe falling from his fingers to land in the dust.

  "Who? Who had it last? Who takes it most?"

  "The doc. The doc uses the dun," Powell said.

  * * *

  She wasn't quite to the train when he stopped her with a touch on her arm.

  "You meeting the train on the day after your wedding, what's that say about your husband?"

  She looked up at Doc Carr and felt her spine go stiff. "It doesn't say anything about anything. I always meet the trains. Everybody knows that."

  "And everybody knows why. Or at least I do," he said.

  It was quiet where they were. The train didn't have anybody on it and was already steaming up to go. The wind was blowing hard and cold; there wasn't anyone outside. Even the Walton kids were gone from the streets.

  "I just like to meet the trains," she said, pulling her arm from his.

  Doc smiled and took her arm again, light and friendly, and walked her to the tracks. "And you'd just like to find your pa climbing down off one of them one day, wouldn't you? Or maybe you'd like to climb on and leave Abilene. I always thought that's what you wanted. I was so sure you didn't want to stay around here. Married. Settled."