Loveland Read online

  “Mexicans! Thieves!”

  Her eyes flashed and Jesse sighed. She turned to the men. “Que es lo que usted quiere?”

  “Esta bien, Señorita, vamos a irnos. No queremos problemas.” The door closed behind them.

  Alex turned to Jesse. He knew what she was thinking; he read her like a book. “Take the hat, Alex,” he said in a low voice so Hope wouldn’t hear. “We jus’ won’t come back again.”

  ****

  “What happened to the old Indian who used to be outside the shop?” Alex asked, making conversation as they rode back to the ranch. She was eating from the lunch bag and occasionally feeding Jesse a bit.

  “What old Indian?” Jesse slid a glance at her and shook the reins a bit.

  “You know, the one who used to be squatting outside, begging. The one with the bracelet I always wanted. The turquoise and silver cuff. You remember? I really had my eye on that. I thought if he sold it he would have money to eat.”

  “No idea. Long gone,” Jesse replied absentmindedly.

  Alex turned away and sighed. She let the silence stretch for a bit before feeding him another bit of chicken. “You didn’t ask,” she said at last. “How much do you know?”

  He thought of pretending he did not understand what she meant, but looking at her, he knew her need to tell was greater than his need to hear it all. “You don’t have to tell me,” he replied. “I know you were married and it’s been annulled. I know you didn’t try to kill ’im, Alex. I know you gave him laudanum to—”

  “You said once we were best friends. Friends share everything.”

  There had been a day, which now seemed so long ago, when he had been telling her how he had come up from Texas, aged fourteen, on a cattle drive, riding drag all the way, eating dust ’til his lungs were choked with it, and how he missed his family, missed watching his baby brother round the house while his mama did her chores. He had explained how his father had died in the War Between the States when he was six and he had become the man of the family, but they were too poor and there were too many mouths to feed at home so he left. Alex, aged eleven at the time, with tears in her eyes, asked who his best friend was, and he had replied jokingly, “Well, you are, of course,” trying to get her to smile again. They were different people then, so much younger, and neither knew what lay ahead.

  “Friends don’t pry,” he finally answered. “If you want to tell me more…it’s up to you.”

  Alex looked straight ahead. He wondered if she felt spurned, rejected.

  “It’s not that I don’t care,” he said as if he had read her thoughts. “I do care, Alex. It’s just…it’s none of my business. Unless you make it so, of course.”

  “I want you to know,” she said at last. “I want someone who knows me…” Her voice trailed off. Of course that wasn’t it. Annie and Tom already knew, but Jess was different. Jesse would protect her in a different way, defend her somehow. She needed him to know.

  “When we were in Paris…on the fateful wedding trip, we dined out with his friends—I think it was the second evening. It was a friend of his from school and his mistress who he had installed in her own apartments in Paris. She had been—well, like me I suppose—a fairly well-bred woman, maybe not an aristocrat’s daughter or what-have-you, but nonetheless well-bred. She had fallen in love with a soldier, given herself to him, and he deserted her. So there she was, a courtesan, if you like. Bound to live forevermore on the generosity of a series of benefactors until her beauty or her luck ran out. I’m telling you this because that evening I looked my alternative fate in the face. It could have been me, had I not consented to this marriage, such as it was.

  “But the other side of that evening was the insult to me my husband perpetrated. The only way I can explain it is, if you took me into Miss Bea’s and asked me to have dinner with one of the soiled doves.” She looked at Jess for a moment to try to read his face but he gave no reaction. He understood perfectly. “You know me well enough that I would have nothing against the poor woman per se. My sympathy was with her completely. But the insult to my honor was…well, it was stupendous to say the least. One’s husband simply does not take one out to dine with a-a fallen woman.

  “I had to leave early. I complained of a headache. John did not even see me back to the hotel.” She stopped for a while as Jesse continued to look ahead. “That was the kind of man he was, Jess. He was a drunkard, a bounder we call them in England, or a blackguard, a gambler, a womanizer. That was the man my dear father wished me to be married to for the rest of my life.”

  There was a long silence until Jesse said, “You’re free now, Alex. You’re here.”

  “Yes. I’m back in Colorado. And all’s right with the world,” she quoted with some amusement as she fed him a piece of apple somewhat distractedly. “But sometimes I wonder, I wonder why men do as they do to women and why women put up with it. I’m not sure what I’ll do if those damn paintings don’t sell, Jesse. I really don’t.”

  Jesse headed the wagon down the fork in the road to the Homestead to drop off some supplies for Annie and Tom. Several horses were hitched out front.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Jesse asked, coming in the door with Alex close behind. She went past the men to give Annie a hug and stood there with her in the kitchen area.

  “Hayden’s been shot,” Tom said, referring to one of the men who had been at the Line Camp called Cattail. He was sitting at the head of the table, the punchers around him. “Charging after rustlers up on the north range.”

  “Sheriff says the Darcy Brothers are out and about,” Jesse told him. “Was it them?”

  “Prob’ly. Some of our men have already gone after them but if the sheriff’s aware, then I should think they’ll soon be joined by a posse.” He looked across at Annie who was visibly relieved.

  Alex picked up a metal implement on the worktop by the sink and started to turn it around in her hands. It had a strange, sharp blade shaped like a crescent moon and she turned it this way and that, trying to figure out what it did. After a time, the room had gone dead quiet. Alex looked up: all eyes were on her. “What? What now?” Her questioning gaze searched all the men. “What’s the matter?”

  “Heck, woman, you are about the most dang helpless…” Garrison started but he saw Annie shake her head. “Ain’tcha never seen a dang can opener before?”

  “No,” said Alex with a giggle, “when would I ever have used a can opener, Garrison? Tell me that.”

  “Lordy, lord,” said Reb from a corner. “Woman rides like the wind, carries a rifle, can even throw a lariat if’n she’s a mind, but put ’er in a kitch’n…”

  Alex looked over at Tom who was quietly laughing. “Ah, well, you jus’ have to love ’er, useless as she is.”

  “Oh, Tom,” reprimanded Annie. “She’s not useless at all.” She took a can of tomatoes sitting there and showed Alex how to use the opener.

  Jesse watched her for a moment. “After the circus on Sa’day, Alex, I think the next thing you better make sure you learn to use is that new Colt.”

  Chapter Six

  Brandy was limping.

  “Whadya do to my dang horse?” Jesse reined in beside Alex as they got into town.

  “Prob’ly only a stone, Jess. We’ll take him over to Vernon’s and let him have a look,” Cal mediated.

  “Yes, if we can find any place to tie up. Look at it!” Alex grimaced.

  Loveland was busy. Not only was the circus here, but it was Saturday shopping for most people in from the outlying farms and ranches. The place was swarming.

  “Behind Miss Bea’s. No one ever ties up there.” Cal exchanged a questioning look with Jesse who nodded and they walked the horses round the back of the main street. There they found free space on the hitching rail behind the saloon.

  Jesse heaved a sigh as he dismounted. “You two wait here. I’ll walk Brandy over to the Liv’ry and see what’s happenin’.” He ran his hand down Brandy’s leg to the fetlock. “Damn,” he mumbled, “lo
oks like a scrape. All right,” he said looking up again. “Be right back.”

  Cal leaned back against the rail and watched Alex watching Jesse walk away. Almost as tall as Jesse, but dark, he wore his Stetson pushed well forward to shade his eyes. He was never really clean-shaven, but neither did he have a beard, a fact that had fascinated Alex when she was little as she could never figure out how he maintained that stubble.

  She looked back at him. “So?” She smiled.

  “So...” he responded quietly. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn’t letting Alex know.

  Alex crossed her arms, still smiling over at Cal. She was comfortable with her friend, always had been, but his occasional inscrutability both amused and infuriated her. She turned back as Jesse came toward them on the boardwalk, a bag of candies in his hand. Just then, one of the soiled doves slipped out the back door of the saloon, a cigarette between her stained fingers, blouse sliding off one shoulder.

  “Those for me, Jesse dear?” she crooned.

  Jesse stopped in his tracks. He looked across at Alex and then at Cal, both of who turned and stood by to see what Jesse would do.

  Cal chewed his gum, then said, “Mabel, you got a smoke there. I don’t think you need them candies as well.”

  The girl flicked ash in Cal’s direction, then turned back to Jesse. She swayed her hips a bit before giving Jesse a slow smile. “See you real soon, darlin’,” she purred, just loud enough for Alex to hear, before turning to go inside.

  Alex sauntered over to where Jesse still stood transfixed, the bag in his hand. Their eyes met as she nodded her head slightly and lifted the bag from him. “Those fer me, darlin’?” she said.

  ****

  “So when does it start? I can’t see anything!”

  “Well it hasn’t started yet so ’course ya can’t see nothin’, dummy,” said Cal.

  “But I won’t be able to see!”

  “Wanna sit on my lap?” Jesse asked mildly.

  Alex looked around to see whom she knew in the audience. Just about everyone, by name at least, was her answer. “I think there’re enough rumors about me for the moment, thanks.”

  “You worried what people might say, Ladilex? That ain’t like you. I thought you were above that sorta thing now. Beyond reproach.”

  Alex snorted. “I don’t care what people might say but I don’t have to give them fodder for gossip either, Cal.” She craned her neck to see over the man in front.

  Cal tapped him on the shoulder. “You mind removin’ your hat, sir, so’s our lady friend here can see?”

  The man looked at Cal then over at Alex and nodded politely before removing his hat. Then he faced front and put it right back on.

  “Look here,” started in Jesse tapping the man on the shoulder again. “We jus’ asked you real polite-like to—”

  “Jesse! Leave it...it’s fine. I can see well enough.” Alex sat back and crossed her arms before stealing a glance at Jesse. He was biting his lip, suppressing his anger. “You haven’t changed,” she muttered over at him. “Not one bit.”

  They watched intently as the acrobats and jugglers performed, laughed at the ridiculous things the clowns did, thrilled at the balancing acts and got nervous when the lion tamer came out. The crack of the whip and roar of the beast sent Alex covering her eyes and cowering into Jesse, but she sat up again to see the trick riders. Jesse and Cal exchanged looks over the top of her head.

  “Hey, Alex, maybe you should try that instead of ropin’. Be right entertainin’ watchin’ you do that ’round the corral.”

  “Yeah,” joined in Cal. “I wanna see ’er stand on ’er saddle tippy-toe-like and then do a headstand like that.”

  “Go on. Have your fun, you two. You’re only jealous because you know I can outride either of you any day of the week.”

  “Ohhh,” the two men said together.

  “Whoa, now, sweetheart,” Jesse went on. “Them’s fightin’ words.”

  “Any day, Jesse Makepeace, any day!” Alex affirmed. “I know more about horses than the two of you put together. Put together,” she repeated when she saw Cal’s smirk.

  At the end of the show, they filed down the midway with everyone else, past all the sideshows. “Can we go see the snake pit?” Alex wanted to know.

  “Heck no,” answered Jesse, “there’re enough dang snakes in Colorado without paying good money to see them.”

  “Well, can we see the bearded lady then?”

  Cal laughed. “Here,” he said, sticking his chin out toward Alex, “ya can feel my face again. That’s just as good, ain’t it?”

  “Come on,” said Jesse suddenly pulling Alex’s hand. “I’m gonna win you a doll with throwing them balls.”

  The three of them got in line for Jesse to have a turn throwing balls at wooden faces. As disappointed customers drifted away, Jesse reached in his pocket for his nickel and slapped it on the counter. The roustabout slid it into his pile and turned to set up the wooden faces once more before handing Jesse the three balls.

  Jesse felt the heft of the ball in his palm before pulling his arm back and throwing it. Bang! Down went the first one. He turned and gave Alex a smug smile before pulling back and slamming out the second. Bang! Cal stopped chewing in expectation and Alex gripped her hands together as if in prayer. Jesse’s arm pulled back and released the third ball, hitting the face squarely.

  But it didn’t go down.

  “That shot was good,” said Jesse staring the man down.

  “No sirree, the little man has got to go down for it to be good.”

  “I think you all better think ’bout that some.” Cal leaned on the counter with his hand noticeably on his six-shooter.

  “Now looka here. I don’t want no trouble from you all. You lost fair and square—”

  “The hell I did.”

  “Jess, I don’t really want a doll anyway,” Alex conciliated. “I’ve rather outgrown dolls, haven’t I?”

  “Well, I sure as heck want my nickel back,” he responded still staring at the man.

  There was a moment in which Cal made a small movement with his right arm before the man slipped the nickel back across the counter and Jesse pocketed it, his eyes steadily on the roustabout.

  “Just for friendly relations, sir,” the man said as the three walked off.

  “Ah, good ol’ Jess,” sighed Cal. “Black and white, right and wrong…”

  “I didn’t see you holdin’ back from the matter none.”

  “Well, heck, Jess, I know you better’n you know yerself. I don’t hold back none for my friends.” They walked on a bit. “You have no gray areas, Jess. Couldn’t be the shot were jus’ not strong enough to get the wooden face down?”

  “Nope.”

  “Don’t spoil it!” Alex turned and gave Jesse a push. “Don’t spoil it by being moody! I’ve just had one of the best days of my life and—”

  “Come ’ere.” Cal crouched. “I’m gonna give you a piggy back ride back to the horses.”

  The diversion worked. Alex held her stomach with laughing so hard and Jesse laughed too. “Gosh durnit, Cal, if that offer ain’t plain indecent I don’t know what is.” But he was still laughing.

  “Yes, I think I’m past my piggy back days. Past my doll days, if I ever had them. My piggy back and my sit in lap days are gone now.” She threw up her hands as if in disgust.

  They passed the saloon and Alex looked over the top of the swinging doors. Cal laughed now but Jesse said, “For goodness sake Alex, what the heck are you thinkin’?”

  “What? It’s only music and drinkin’, ain’t it Ladilex?” defended Cal.

  “Hmmm. I don’t know. But it seems like there’s some really good music being played in there. Everyone seems to be having a very good time. Why can’t women go in? Why shouldn’t women be allowed to go? I mean, you know-ordinary women.” She fluttered her eyelashes in all innocence.

  There was a momentary silence before the two men burst out laughing.

  “All right,
all right. Have your fun,” Alex moaned as they approached the two horses. “But one day women will have equal rights and—”

  “Aw, heck, Ladilex. You ain’t gonna be one of them suffrage women now, are you? We always thought you were one of us anyways. What you wanna go spoilin’ a good thing for?”

  Alex laughed again. “Well, now we have a problem,” she pointed out as they reached the horses. “Two horses, three people.” She turned to look from one to the other.

  Cal made the decision for them. “You ride with Jess. Brimstone don’t take to strangers kindly and he’s only half-broke.”

  Jesse extended his hand and pulled Alex up behind him. They took to the road at a gentle lope as the town started to empty out. Alex wrapped her arms around Jesse’s waist, resting more or less on his gun belt. She didn’t give a second thought to holding him like this until, moving back some while adjusting her seat, her hands slipped onto his stomach for a moment. She suddenly felt as if she had swallowed a gallon of ice water and froze. The sheer firmness of his body, the taut muscles, the solid, rock hard strength she felt astounded her.

  She had the greatest urge to run her hands over him, to feel that strength, to know those muscles and to finally rest her head against him. She faced straight into his back, looking at the way his shaggy hair fell over his shirt collar just peeking out of his leather vest. The knot of his bandana was just visible under his hair and Alex had a further urge to lift his hat, push his hair aside and untie the neckerchief so she could kiss his neck. Oh, lord, what was she thinking?

  She adjusted her hands back onto Jesse’s gun belt hoping he hadn’t noticed her moving them. Then the thought struck her as to where her hands actually were—within inches of... She turned her head to the side as if one of the men could see her blush. She looked out toward the ranch, trying to dispel those thoughts but as they approached the western range, Alex spotted a cloud of thick dust in the distance.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Jesse looked where she was pointing and Cal saw it at the same moment. “Holy— It’s a stampede!” Jesse pulled up his bandana. He spurred his horse into a gallop and followed Cal toward the herd. The thundering Longhorns were coming straight at them, noise and dust enveloping them, and no other puncher had managed to get to point yet; the cows were following their leader and headed down the dry draw. Alex gripped Jesse more tightly and bent her knees in to grip the horse’s flanks as best she could.