DAY 1
"Damn. Remind me to punch your lights out the next time you suggest I go out on morning patrol with you." Buck Wilmington stretched his legs against the stirrups and ran a hand over his face. Vin Tanner, riding next to him,
chuckled.
"Not my fault if you stay up half the night with --"
"Now just never you mind who with." Buck shook his head and grinned beatifically. "I gotta' say though, it was worth it."
"You ever think it ain't?" Vin reined in and smiled at his friend as he lifted his canteen and took a long drink from it, then held it out to Buck. The other man nodded as he accepted it with a slight scowl.
"Well, I know I think this is a damned wild goose chase. It's too hot for this early in the day, Vin. Anyone hangin' around out here would have to be idiots -- present company excluded."
Vin smiled as he took back the canteen and recapped it, then sighed and knit his brow as his gaze wandered out across the plain shimmering in the heat already rising from the baked ground. "Fact is they ain't idiots or I could track 'em better. They hide too damned well." His voice trailed off as he wondered again how a group that big could be so elusive. He was disappointed in himself for not having more to report to Chris, and beginning to doubt his own tracking abilities. Out before sunup with Josiah and then Buck the last two days, he'd been sure he could run across something in the damp places that baked into iron by mid-morning, but there had been nothing. No sign at all, and the only really good sign had been four days ago now. Buck, beside him, voiced his own thoughts as though he'd said them aloud.
"Don't you think maybe they're gone? That Chris was wrong about them bein' a problem -- if they were ever here to begin with?"
"Don't know." Vin shook his head and gathered his reins through his fingers, studying the thick leather as if it might offer insight. "Somethin' in my gut tells me they're still around, Buck. An' that can't be good seein' as how Chris--"
"Who's that?" Buck interrupted. He was pointing to a small figure on the plains headed away from them. Vin pulled his scope from his pocket and steadied it, nodding quickly to himself as he recognized the worn and mis-sized clothing of the timid woman he'd seen out here alone all too often.
"Opal Jones."
Buck nodded, recognizing the name of the half-Chickasaw woman that cleaned up the saloon every night. "She's sure a long way out here to be on foot with it this hot."
"Gotta' do her chores I reckon, hot or not." Vin glanced at Buck as he tucked away his scope, then legged his black towards the small woman slowly working her way towards town, still nearly a mile distant. Buck clucked to his gray and followed closely. He saw the woman turn as she suddenly realized they were there, and Vin raised a hand to her and called out when she raised an old shotgun towards them. "Miz Jones! It's Vin Tanner an' Buck Wilmington."
The woman hesitated, and the two riders reined in close enough that they could see the way she was squinting at them. Buck suddenly realized the early sun was behind them, making it all but impossible for the woman to really see who they were. He put all the smile into his voice he could. "Now you ain't gonna' shoot your best customer, are you?"
The small woman lowered the shotgun and relaxed her posture somewhat, then finally smiled very slightly, a fleeting movement of only her lips. "Mr. Cardiff would fire me," she said. Buck laughed.
"Headin' back to town?" Vin had legged his black a little closer to the woman and was looking down at her with his brows knit slightly. The woman nodded almost imperceptibly but said nothing. The hot wind picked up several strands of her black hair and blew them into her face, across the dark skin and too-thin features. Vin found himself wondering, as he often did, whether she got enough to eat. He looked around at the barren landscape and the bright-hot sky, and then back at the small woman. "Too hot for such a long walk," he said, "let us give you a ride."
Opal startled visibly, then started to shake her head no, even backing up a step or two as she did so. Buck leaned towards her from his saddle, his voice rich with soft reassurance. "Aw c'mon now, Miz Jones. You know ol' Vin here needs some company to keep me from complainin' at him about makin' me go out so blasted early. You'd be doin' him a favor."
Opal looked at Vin questioningly. "That's a fact," said the tracker, smiling. The woman stood thinking a moment, then nodded hesitantly. Immediately Vin rode closer to her and reached down to pull the shotgun from her grasp and hand it to Buck. Then he extended his hand back down to Opal. She stood there looking at it as though uncertain how to respond, then looked up into Vin's open face as though searching for any hidden danger. Finally she reached slowly to his outstretched hand and placed her own upon it. In one smooth movement Vin pulled her up and sat her in front of him on his horse. She was light, and the small bones in her hips and back were sharp where they touched him as she scooted into position on the rise of the pommel. Fragile as a dried seed pod, he thought, like brittle paper that could suddenly come to bits and blow apart on the slightest breeze. He shook his head to himself and compressed his lips as he legged his gelding on again. He'd been hungry often enough as a boy that he knew what that kind of brittleness felt like from the inside, and it bothered him to have his suspicions about the woman's hard times confirmed. It hardly seemed fair.
"Well now, Miz Jones," Buck's voice broke into Vin's somber thoughts and made the tracker turn to regard him. Opal turned her head silently to look at Buck, too. "You know I just gotta' ask if you've met your pretty new neighbor yet."
Vin chuckled and glanced quickly at Opal, who was eyeing the taller man steadily. He looked back at Buck. "What are you up to now, Buck? Did you find another lady you ain't acquainted with?" Vin mocked Buck's own words from when he had agreed to stay on in town. Buck put on an embarrassed grin but didn't let go of the subject.
"What do you know about her, Miz Jones?"
The small dark woman regarded Buck thoughtfully and then suspicion suddenly veiled the black depths of her eyes like a duststorm. Vin saw it happen, but a quick glance at Buck showed him that the older man was entirely unaware of having put the woman on her guard. Opal looked away from Buck and dropped her chin so that when she finally spoke, the single word was muffled. "Nothing," she said softly.
"I think I heard her name is Julianna. She's the new girl at the laundry. Don't she live right near you there, back behind the saloon?"
Vin felt a tiny shock run through Opal's frame at Buck's words and noted the dusky flush that rose up the back of her neck. She said nothing, but looked even more intently at her own hands where they clung to the saddle horn. Darn it, Buck! thought Vin, a decent woman don't wanna' be reminded she lives in a saloon. But what he said out loud was:
"I ain't heard much about 'er, Buck, and it looks like Miz Jones ain't either. You should ask Nathan. I remember her goin' to see him for somethin' a coupla' days after she came to town."
Buck shook his head to himself. "Guess so," he sighed. "It's odd. I can't place her face but I'm sure I've seen her before." He legged his gray up even with Vin's black and tipped his head to try to look into Opal's face. "You sure you don't know her?"
The woman shook her head without raising her eyes, and Vin felt her thin body grow rigid with fear. He threw Buck a warning look that made the gunman's eyes widen in innocent surprise, and he drew back several steps to let Vin ride a bit ahead of him.
"How're your trees holdin' up in this heat, Miz Jones?" Vin's level gaze held Buck's even as he directed his question at the woman in a soft voice.
"Fine." Her answer was immediate, if somewhat shy.
Buck nodded to Vin. "Peach trees must need a lot a' water. How do you get it to 'em?"
The woman looked up again and craned her head around far enough to regard Vin with an impenetrable gaze. Then she smiled very slightly and looked at Buck. "Buckets," she said very softly.
Buck whistled. "You must have fifty trees out there! An' folks say they're gonna' be the finest peach trees in the territory in another year or so. How's a little thing like you do that an' work in town, too?"
Opal chuckled very softly, a rich sound like freshly-turned earth. "You come see," she said, "some time. I dug irrigation ditches. You pour in water at one end, it runs down all through the grove."
"That's pretty slick." Vin smiled at the woman when his words made her turn around to look at him again. "That how they do it up in the Nations?"
Opal shook her head. "No. We have enough rain there." She raised her chin in a gesture that pointed towards the southwest. "Some Pima women showed me this. They said they have done it that way for generations in their homeland."
"Seems I heard of that," mused Buck. "I might just have to come see this irrigation thing a' yours." He smiled at Opal, a dazzling flash of white teeth and sparkling eyes that would have fetched a giggle from most women, and that made this one grin in a far more relaxed way than she had so far. Vin relaxed too, then, and smiled at Buck.
"I'm only there in the mornings," said Opal shyly, "Any time you want to see, just come. But make sure you call to me so I don't shoot you by accident."
Buck eyed the heavy old shotgun he'd taken from her that was laying across his thighs. "With this?" He looked up at her with teasing eyes that had a sudden glimmer of seriousness beneath them. "I hope you ain't relyin' on this thing to protect you from anything you gotta' actually shoot."
"Yes," said Opal simply. Vin felt her stiffen.
"My advice to you would be to use it as a club if you gotta' use it all," said Buck softly. "Or else get yourself somethin' that ain't half-rusted on the--"
Vin interrupted when he saw the color drain out of the woman's face at Buck's words. "You know, I bet that old shotgun is one a' them heavy action pieces that works right as rain again with just a little oil an' polish. Can't stop 'em with a steam locomotive. Why'n't you let me look at it for ya', Miz Jones?"
Instead of saying anything, the woman just pointed silently at the buildings they were approaching as they entered the edge of town and shifted her weight in a way that told Vin she was about to slide down out of the saddle whether he reined in or not. "Hold on, there, Ma'am," he said. "Let me--"
But she was slithering down the gelding's whithers to the street and reaching for her shotgun before Vin could even get the words out. Buck handed the weapon down to her wordlessly, and tipped his hat. "Vin's right," he said seriously. "It'll oil up real good and do fine by ya'."
The woman stared at him a long moment, then glanced quickly at Vin and turned to hurry away from the two men. Her short-hemmed skirt skimmed rapidly against the tops of boots that looked like they'd been dug out of a refuse pile after laying in the sun and rain for a month, Vin thought. She looked back once over her shoulder, almost furtively, pushed opened the door on the rickety outbuilding adjoining the saloon, and vanished into the darkness inside.
"Good goin', Buck," said Vin dryly.
"Well how was I to know she planned to actually shoot that thing? She'll be lucky if she don't blow her own head off if she does." Buck urged his gray on down the street, and Vin sighed and shook his head as he followed.
"You thought she lugged that thing around for the hell of it? Three miles out an' three miles back each way?"
"Hell! I don't know, do I? I can't figure her out anyway." Buck looked back over his shoulder at the building into which the woman had vanished.
Vin scowled slightly. "All I know is she's a good woman fallen on hard times, an' that husband a' hers never did strike me as worth even a spit an' a nickel."
"You got that right." Buck nodded.
"Fact is, Cardiff told me the only reason she's livin' behind the saloon right now is that she asked if she could work there cleanin' up at night to pay off the bar tab Jones left. He found out she was sleepin' in an old crate in the alley after she finished up, so he gave 'er a room."
Buck looked quickly at Vin with a horrified expression. "The hell you say! Why would she do that?"
"Cardiff thinks she's that afraid a' Jones if he should come back an' find 'er out to the farm by herself."
The two men drew up at the hitching post in front of the jail and dismounted. Buck stretched his knees and growled. "Some fellas' just ain't fit to be around women," he said. "Kinda' makes me sick."
"Yeah." Vin flipped the reins of his gelding over the hitching rail and stepped up onto the boardwalk. "I'll tell you this, Buck: One of us better figure out a way to oil up that old shotgun a' hers, now that you've given 'er the willies about it."
"OK," said Buck, laughing softly. "Maybe if I do it I can figure out how to meet that new neighbor a' hers while I'm at it."
"You ever let a woman you don't know just go on by?" Vin opened the jail door and walked inside.
"Nope." Buck's laugh floated out behind him as he, too, went inside and then shut the door behind them.
The loud pounding on her door woke Julianna Carson from a deep sleep. "Are you awake in there? It's time to get to work." Julianna pulled herself from the narrow bed. She stretched her arms above her head to try and loosen her stiff muscles. When she had gone back to doing laundry full time she'd rediscovered muscles that had been dormant so long she'd long since forgotten she had them, but the hard work had quickly reminded her. She savored the feeling, though, every night that she lay in the narrow bed in the small room at the back of the laundry. The ache in her muscles seemed to signify that by this work she was in some way redeeming herself for the life she had been living since she was sixteen.
"I'll be right out." Julianna put on her navy blue checked dress and studied her face in the mirror on the wall. She had never thought of herself as pretty no matter how many times she'd heard it from men over the years. She'd often found her lips too full and her pale blue eyes to be too round --although they gave her a look of naivete and innocence, which had been profitable in her former profession. She wound her long ebony hair up behind her head in a bun, shorter pieces of hair framing her face in soft tendrils. Julianna splashed some water on her face from the basin on the dresser and grabbed her apron from the nearby chair.
Mrs. Lansing put Julianna to work ironing some shirts. It was easier to get the ironing done in the morning before it became too hot to stand near the stove. Julianna pushed the iron over the clean white shirt careful not to singe the fabric. She was only half listening to Mrs. Lansing who sat near the front windows hemming a dress. Mrs. Lansing claimed that she kept the chair near the window because the light was better to see by but Julianna knew it was only so that she could keep an eye on what was going on in town.
Mrs. Lansing leaned forward in the chair, her eyes fixed in on something outside. "I do not believe my eyes." Julianna set the iron down on the oven and moved out toward the front of the room to see what had caught her boss's attention. She peered out through the window and saw two men on horses. The first man had a woman riding with him.
"I suppose it's not surprising to see that woman out with those men." Julianna knew who they were although she'd hardly spoken a word to any of them. "That woman should know better. Is she trying to invite trouble?"
Julianna watched as the woman slid off the first man's horse. The second man handed her a shotgun. She recognized the woman; it was Opal Jones. She'd seen her many mornings heading down the alley between the laundry and the saloon.
"I still can't believe Mr. Cardiff hired that half-breed to work for him. All she's going to do is end up causing trouble for him. That's all her kind of people do. I didn't much care for her husband either. He was even more trouble that her. But that still didn't give her the right to do what she did." Mrs. Lansing didn't elaborate further on what she meant by that but it wasn't necessary. In the weeks since she'd arrived Julianna had overheard the so-called decent Christian women in town gossiping about anyone who didn't measure up to their standards, and Opal was one of their favorite targets. She'd heard all about Opal kicking her husband Barry off of their farm.
"I want you to hang out the linens from the hotel next, while I start on altering this jacket for Mr. Standish. He'll be wanting to pick it up this afternoon." Mrs. Lansing's voice cut through Julianna's reverie and she looked up, startled, to see the woman motioning back into the laundry room where the huge piles of hotel linens had been soaking in boiling water.
"Yes, Mrs. Lansing. Right away." Julianna picked up her empty basket and turned to follow the older woman back into the laundry, but paused with her hand on the latch when she heard someone singing. The voice was low and lilting but in the silence of the hot, still morning Julianna heard it clearly. She looked in the direction of the saloon and saw a woman exiting the back door with a pail of kitchen waste. She wore a shirt that was obviously too big for her and a skirt that hit her just above her boot tops. The two women's eyes met and Julianna smiled at Opal and waved in greeting. Opal tentatively raised her hand and then continued on her way to dump the refuse of kitchen scraps and grease.
Julianna went inside and sighed as she stared at the absolute mountain of white linen laying in a heap in the steel tub like heavy lard. Well, it wasn't getting any lighter sitting there. Julianna stooped to pull loose the sheets and wring each one out, then set it into the empty basket. When it was piled as high as it would bear without sliding, she picked it up and banged the door opened to stagger out with the load of wet linens. Three steps out, her foot caught on a loose board, and for a moment she swayed off-balance. Opal, returning from her task, saw Julianna teetering on the brink of ruin and ran the short distance between them, arriving just in time to catch the basket as the woman started to launch it from her arms. Together they wrestled it safely to the ground, laughing. The woman looked up at Opal with smiling eyes, and smoothed back the black hair that curled around the edge of her face.
"Thanks," she grinned. "That was nearly a disaster."
"It would have been a shame to have to wash them over." Opal smiled.
"My name's Julianna Carson." The younger woman put out her hand to Opal, and the older woman hesitated only a moment before taking it in her own.
"I am called Opal."
"I see you out here often in the morning. You sing pretty." Julianna began to take the wet things from the basket one at a time and hang them on the line. Opal's smile grew more shy.
"Thank you. I go to my farm many mornings."
"You have a farm?" Julianna looked at Opal in surprise. This was something she hadn't heard. The way the town women talked, Julianna had thought Opal was destitute.
"Well, well, well, luck must be smilin' on me today. Here, I am just out for a walk and I run into the two prettiest ladies in town." The man's voice startled both women. Julianna saw Opal's eyes narrow suspiciously as the tall mustached man crossed the short distance between him and them.
"Howdy there, Miz Opal. I stopped by to get your shotgun. Vin and I are gonna get it all oiled up for ya." At the tracker's name Opal's body relaxed slightly. She nodded to Buck and Julianna watched as she disappeared into the dark room off the saloon. "And I don't believe that we've been properly introduced yet."
Julianna cautiously extended a hand to the man. "Julianna Carson." She tried to stifle a giggle as he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it.
"Buck, Buck Wilmington at your service." He flashed her a smile that she was sure made most women weak in the knees. She knew his type all too well, quick with a flattering word but whose eyes would quickly wander.
"I doubt I'll be needing any of your *services*."
"Ya never know ma'am, you just never know." Buck reached for an errant strand of hair that was blowing across her face, and Julianna thought she saw something a little deeper below the surface of his playful eyes.
"I'll --," her words were cut off as Opal rejoined them. She held out the gun to Buck. He turned it over in his hands a few times. He still didn't know exactly what he was going to do with it.
"Well alrighty then, I'll get this thing all oiled up and fixed for ya Miz Opal. Miz Carson, it was a pleasure." He tipped his hat to the women and headed off down the alley. As soon as he was out of sight Julianna let out a hearty laugh. Opal looked at her puzzled.
"I'm sorry. I've just met too many men like him. They think all women are dying for their attention."
"He is very popular with women in the saloon." Opal had noticed that Buck rarely left alone at night.
"I don't doubt he is." Julianna turned back toward her new friend. "You were telling me about your farm before we were interrupted."
"Yes, I have peach trees." Opal sighed and smoothed out her skirt. "They're still small. No real fruit yet. Maybe next year, though." She looked up at the sky and squinted. "But it would be good if we got some rain soon. The baby trees are very dry."
Julianna nodded. "Well, that's ok by me. If it rains I get a bit of a break. There's not much room to hang things up inside." She grinned again at the older woman. "Come over some evening and let's have some coffee or something. Seems like I should get to know my neighbor."
"Thanks. I'd like that. I work at night for Mr. Cardiff, but I will try." She nodded to her new friend. "Good-bye, Julianna. I must go now."
"'Bye, Opal. Say hello to those baby trees for me, the next time you see them." Opal thought for a moment the woman was making fun of her, and felt herself tense up. But Julianna's laugh was so pure that Opal relaxed again. She waved and picked up her empty bucket where she'd dropped it, and headed back into the saloon kitchen.
It was a long, hot day of work later that Opal sat on a crate at the back of the saloon, just inside the kitchen door, watching the men who were drinking and talking. She was waiting for closing time, and the chance to sweep the floor and wipe the tables before she went to bed. She leaned against the wall behind her, her eyes moving quickly from one thing to another. She'd found she enjoyed watching all the things that went on, as long as she wasn't too tired. The woman looked at her hands at that thought, and flexed them slowly against the soreness she still felt from the weeding she'd done earlier in the day. Only four days she had stayed away from the farm, and already the new saplings were being choked out by tall grass. Opal sighed and wished the saloon would close soon. She was tired. And tomorrow would come far too early.
The sudden appearance of someone at the table where Chris and Buck were sitting caused Opal to draw back more closely to the wall behind her. Vin Tanner was throwing his hat down on the table and pulling out a chair to sit down. He was dusty and had obviously just ridden in from somewhere. Opal was surprised at this, not realizing he'd left again after coming in from his morning patrol with Buck. A sudden memory of the simple grace with which he had lifted her to the saddle in front of him slid through her memory at the thought. She remembered looking down at his left hand, the reins running loosely through--
"Get that spill, Opal." Opal jumped at the sound of the voice at her shoulder, and nearly fell off the crate she was sitting on. She pressed a shaking hand to her breast and stood up.
"Sorry, Mr. Cardiff. I didn't hear you come up."
The saloon-owner smiled. "Well, you don't need to jump clean out of your skin just 'cause someone talks to ya', Woman!" He gestured out into the room with a rag he had been using to wipe out glasses. "Get a mop and see if you can clean up that spill out there before some yayhoo falls on his ass."
Opal nodded and grabbed the mop standing nearby, and the bucket with it. She lowered her eyes to the floor as she threaded her way between the tables, trying not to notice the few other women in the saloon, or the men who looked at them. Setting the bucket down near the spreading pool of water that had tumbled from a bucket one of the kitchen helpers had dropped, she began to slog the mop through it and then wring out the collected water. Her eyes were on the floor and the mop, but her ears wandered elsewhere. She realized with surprise that she could hear the voices of the men at the table she'd been staring at a moment before. A blush crept up out of her shirt collar as she suddenly realized she was listening to the soft drawl of the tracker who'd just come in.
"It took me forever, but I found 'em again. An' I don't know what they're doin' out there, but I don't like it."
"How many would you guess there are?" This voice, she knew, belonged to the man who scared her. Even his voice seemed menacingly sharp to her ears. Opal steadied her mop, and kept working.
"Hard to say, there were so many tracks. But at least 20. Maybe 30."
A low whistle was followed by Buck's voice, deep with worry and lowered so that he would not be overheard at any distance. "What the hell would that many men be doin' hangin' around Four Corners?"
It was silent at the table for a long moment, and Opal swallowed nervously. Had they noticed how close she was to them? Did they realize she was listening?
A sigh then, long and weary, and the tracker's voice. "Chris, is there somethin' you know that we don't?"
Silence again, and it spread out from the table this time in an unmistakable way. Opal finished mopping and set the mop into the bucket, then lifted it to carry back to the kitchen. She stopped as she straightened up and
half-turned, caught by three pairs of eyes regarding her intently. Opal gasped, and faltered a moment. Buck shook himself slightly. "Hey, it's OK, Miz Jones. There's no--" Opal didn't hear the rest. She was hurrying too quickly through the saloon with the bucket and mop, her heart pounding loudly in her ears with terror. She ran all the way through the kitchen and out into the dark alley, where she stood bent over until she could catch her breath. The soft pad of a cat leaping to a barrel next to her made her jump, and tears started at the corners of her eyes. Damn, she was tired of being scared!