Chapter Forty
Istrode across the saloon planks, wood creaking beneath my boots.
Dusty farmers crowded the bar, hollering about who knows what, broken firelight catching on the jagged edges of shot-out lanterns.
In the gloom, Marshal Canton held court, patting his double-breasted tweed vest. Beyond two quarreling cowboys, one grasping another’s black suspenders, the Wild Bunch outlaws lounged in a shadowy alcove.
Bitter Creek, Tulsa Jack, Quiet Bill, a few others, and their ladies.
I thought that might be Rose of Cimarron perched behind Bitter Creek, one black glove resting on his wide, angular shoulders, her jade-green gown with black lace striking against her freckles.
Marshal Canton sighted me—I angled toward the Wild Bunch, my pulse jackhammering my throat, hoping I wouldn’t disintegrate right there.
Bitter Creek tracked me as I came closer, eyes narrowing when I touched the chairback across the table from him. I drug out the seat, wooden legs screeching. Every gaze in the saloon snapped to me. Noise was sucked outta the bar real quick.
“Mind if I join you fellers,” I said and sat.
Quiet Bill’s brows rose beneath his brim, and Bitter Creek’s jaw paused its rhythmic chewing of tobacco. “Beg pardon?”
Tulsa Jack gripped his revolvers. Sure enough, each member of the Bunch was just about ready to shoot me for speaking. I could walk away. I could say I was mistaken.
And yet I must tell the truth. Though I couldn’t ensure my future—myself probably picked off by gunshots by nightfall—I must exonerate Stot and the Browns. My stomach clenched as I leaned toward Bitter Creek. “I’ve information about your missing men.”
Bitter Creek rubbed his black mustache, then spit tobacco on the floor. Someone in another room played a shuddery piano melody, and smoke filled the open spaces. No one spoke.
Marshal Frank Canton bustled across the room, the leather of his boots squeaking.
He stopped at our table, gaze stuttering on the outlaws, and wiped a handkerchief across his sweaty forehead.
“Alright now, Miss Hoopes.” Marshal Canton straightened his wide, four-in-hand necktie.
“Why don’t we head on over to the office. ”
I kicked out a chair. “Sit down, Frank. Take a breath.”
Quiet Bill snorted and slapped his thigh.
Marshal Canton smoothed a thumb along the border of his handkerchief, took a gander over his shoulder toward the batwing door.
A decanter with lemon clicked before me.
I flinched, but it was just the bartender.
I slipped my hands round the glass, remnants of soot and flame a burnt texture across my palms. Bitter Creek leaned back against his chair’s spindles, his expression almost hungry, as if he relished my terror.
“I’ve a story to tell.” I cleared my throat, raised my voice. “Everyone has a right to hear.”
“Alright.” Bitter Creek stuck a cigarette between his teeth. “Let’s have it.” He kicked his feet onto the tabletop and spoke to the marshal. “Sit.”
Marshal Canton sat in a hurry, his breathing fast and wet. I sipped the brandy, forced my posture to ease. My pulse thumped the undersides of my wrists. “Those missing men of yours? They set fire to my claim and attempted to assault me,” I began.
Marshal Canton’s elbows slipped off the table.
Bitter Creek ran a coin over his knuckles, back and forth, the saloon a hollow echo.
His gaze was frightening, feral and unhinged.
I could understand why his summer name was once Slaughter Kid.
I told of that first day of the rush, sweat soaking my spine, the entire saloon sidling as close as they dared.
I chronicled the fire and the cayenne pepper, narrated a tale with enough detail to distinguish the missing cowboys.
Marshal Canton fiddled with his tie, and the bartender topped off my drink, his red-knuckled hand shaking.
As I spoke, Bitter Creek evaluated me, coin racing across his joints, the Native headdress on the penny flashing and vanishing as the coin flipped.
“So I blasted them, sending them to kingdom come,” I said, finishing my story.
A hush. A decanter fell to the floor and reverberated with an eerie twang as the glass spun.
I knew then that I’d be shot by nightfall.
I was as good as hanged. It was just the toss of a coin, a gamble that folks would be decent enough to treat a woman same as they’d treat a man.
Why’d I expect folks to care about a woman’s perspective?
Why’d I think there was a possibility my story would be believed? This world was twisted upside down.
I squeezed my throat above the high neck of my lace overblouse. It smelt of burning, of red oak wood and history.
Tulsa Jack snorted, breaking the pause. “Sure enough, doll.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No.”
“Why would she come in here and make up stories?” Quiet Bill leaned against a post. “Saying notions that’ll get her pushing up daisies?”
Tulsa Jack scratched his forearm, wiry hair beside large freckles.
“I don’t buy it.” He leaned closer, his face windburnt along his cheekbones.
“Sweetheart, in the Wild West we don’t let little ladies make up stories,” he drawled.
“They were quick riders, surely got there before some woman—you must’ve slain them to get their land. ”
“Well now, Tulsa, I ride swift.” I raised my glass in a toast, then sipped, the lemon peel bitter along the inner curve of my cheeks.
Marshal Canton kept shaking his head, the barrels of his arms crossed over his body. “Now, say this tale is truth?” He took off his hat, rested the brim on his stomach. “Why’d you hide the bodies?”
“Why do you think?” I crossed my arms, mirroring him. “Because I assumed none would believe me, that I’d lose my land and be hanged for murder.”
“But did you murder them?” Marshal Canton asked.
“No. They tried to rape me: They would’ve slaughtered me for the land.” I held Bitter Creek’s gaze, then Quiet Bill’s. “I decided I didn’t want to die that day.”
There was a long moment, the entire saloon steaming with the tension between the Wild Bunch and me, Bitter Creek’s bronze penny glinting in the quavering lamplight, his skin pallid below his thick black mustache.
I caught the gaze of the adventuress in the jade dress, her scarlet lips pursed.
It was as if she wanted to say she believed me—but of course she couldn’t.
Women, even bold, renegade women, were trained to be silent.
Quiet Bill crossed his long legs at the ankles, herringbone trousers cuffed up above his golden alligator boots. “It ain’t right to threaten a lady like that.”
Tulsa Jack scoffed. Then Bitter Creek set his coin down with a loud clack, his light-blue eyes ghostly. “You’re saying it was kill them or be killed.”
“It was the only choice.” I held his uncanny gaze. “I’m not sure about you, but when stuck between a bad choice and something awfuller, I’m choosing bad.”
Bitter Creek stroked his mustache. He must know the predicament of balancing the black and the dark of a moral dilemma.
In the smoke above, a lantern light winked out, and the grimy box of the saloon dimmed further.
All a’sudden, Bitter Creek pushed off the table and lurched up.
He snapped at the crowd, his gangly arms shaking out tension. “Every one of you—stop eavesdropping.”
And quick as a punch, the swarm turned away and pretended to busy themselves with their own matters. Bitter Creek sat back down. His lady stepped forward and set her hands on his shoulders. He rearranged his spine about the chair, and her smile strained.
Marshal Canton tipped his decanter, the etched glass tossing refractions across the table’s dark wood. He made slick, wet sounds as he chewed his tobacco. “You see,” the marshal said, “what doesn’t track for me—how’d you haul off them bodies?”
“Like I already said—tied ’em to my horse, dragged them away.” I gripped my drink, black cinders an arc under my nails.
The marshal straightened his paisley tie. “I’m thinking you had help. The Browns, perhaps.”
“Wasn’t the Browns. They’d nothing to do with this. Honest folk.” I lifted my brows, held Bitter Creek’s gaze. “And we’re all intelligent, sensible folks here. No one’s stirring up any vigilante nonsense, right?” I shifted my scrutiny to a couple of sweaty, red-faced cowboys standing nearby.
I didn’t waver, and after a span, there were a few grunts and nods. “Alright.” Marshal Canton leaned back and spit out some chew. It splattered on the oak floor, beside my black lace-up boots. “But if you had help, you wouldn’t be telling, would ya?”
Through the lone window, the light shifted from citrine to gold, sundown swiftly rushing forward.
“Look here, are folks chattering that I’m a darling on Sunday afternoons?
I’m solitary. I don’t even keep with my brothers.
Ask around,” I said. “The Browns aren’t mixed up in this.
That’s truth, so leave ’em be. This is my past alone. ”
Marshal Canton tapped his finger on his handkerchief, smashing an embroidered petal. I sipped my brandy, heat sweaty along my shoulders and up my neck.
“You’re courting an outlaw, right?” Bitter Creek asked. “The Lawman.”
I spit out my brandy sour, back into my glass. “Wherever you hear them horsefeathers?”
Bitter Creek sucked in a drag on his cigarette, exhaled.
“I myself,” Marshal Canton cleared his throat, “overheard such notions from the Lawman himself.”
Ah hell, they’d surely kill me now. I’d slain some of their own and was sparking with their enemy.
I opened my mouth, didn’t know what to say.
The nesters who’d loitered about crowded closer, gazes flicking among themselves.
I winced, realizing Bitter Creek probably recognized me from when I’d shot at them a few days past. “So was it you,” I said, “that I picked off in the snowstorm?”
The marshal slumped back in his chair. “What now?”
“Nah.” Bitter Creek smiled, teeth biting round his cigarette. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs. “Your shots were wide enough.”
Quiet Bill groaned. “Ah hell, I thought you looked familiar.” He took off his hat and rubbed his short black hair. “I’d started to like you some.”
“Well.” I cleared my throat, my chest scratchy. “I’m not courting the Lawman.”
“Darling.” An adventuress a few stools over smirked, popped an olive in her mouth. She leaned forward, a curve of black lace luminous against her porcelain skin, her fluttering sleeves sweeping the wood paneling of the bar. “Maybe you should,” she said.
I fanned my fingers across my breastbone. “Ain’t no matter.”
The moment stretched. A farmer just beyond spilled his whiskey, the scent piercing and sweet. “Fellers, I propose we believe her,” Marshal Canton said. “I reckon that’s truth, that she would’ve met a violent end. I say we let the law handle this matter here.”
There was a rumble as the crowd discussed, deciding among themselves what they thought justice might mean in such a matter.
Bitter Creek’s lady caught my gaze, the feathers in her elaborate updo casting shadows across her cheeks.
She nodded, as if saying she’d have done the same, as if she trusted me, as if she would’ve joined me in battle. I nodded back, one woman to another.
Bitter Creek rubbed his bronze coin between his fingers. He spoke, his voice carrying across the tavern. “If someone threatened to kill me, I know I’d shoot first.”
Marshal Canton nodded, and these seasons of worry began to weaken, like oncoming dawn hazing beyond the rim of the earth.
There seemed a possibility where I’d walk from this saloon tonight.
I needed to jump on this moment and take control—and then get the hell out of Dodge.
“We’re sorted here?” I said to Bitter Creek.
Bitter Creek rubbed his eyebrows, sending the brittle strands wayward. The dark brows were heavy on his narrow, gaunt face. A beat, then he waved me away. “Just watch your back.”
I stood and gripped the chair’s oak spine, lifted my brows at the marshal. He fastened and unfastened his top vest button, still piecing together my story. “How ’bout you come by my office. You can sign a statement, and I’ll take the investigation from there.”
“Tomorrow.”
After a long moment, he nodded—any fool would agree it was plain dumb recklessness to wander town after dark, after such a confession.
I nodded at the Wild Bunch and their ladies, then strode to the door.
My boots clacked, my legs wobbly, the entire saloon watching me depart, everyone holding their breath to see if I’d be shot.
But then I was beyond the door, the cool dark smudging up the sky, stars flashing in the black. I yanked out my six-shooter, trained it on the batwing doors, stumbled backward to the elm trunk where I’d looped Cricket’s reins. I loosed a shuddery exhale—no one followed yet.
In the end, however this lawless frontier decided to hand out justice didn’t matter, not really.
Challenges would always come. I may go to jail; I may lose my land.
Or perhaps the marshal would shuffle my report below all the other lost crimes.
Telling my tale at the saloon felt like an end to this season of winter.
Perhaps by confessing, I entered a new era.
I’d done what I must and felt free in a way I hadn’t been in a long while, perhaps freer than I’d ever been.
I vaulted onto Cricket and slipped sideaways, my bootheel missing the stirrup, my body all-overish fuzzy with drink.
Come hell or highwater, drunk or not, I was riding straightaway to tell that renegade a thing or two about who I was and what we were and whyever would he say we’re courting—the presumptuous bastard, himself intent on marrying another woman.