Gunman and the Angel Read online

  The cabin was easy to locate in pines and hemlocks at the end of a hollow, one lantern light from the window, smoke curling from a stone chimney. A half-moon shone enough to cast dim shadows. Dan and Mandy left the horses a quarter mile out, tethered to pines. They split to come in from opposite directions. Dan thought about the Winchester, but they’d be in close quarters. He wasn’t even sure the four were all in the cabin. At the corral, he holstered the Peacemaker to climb the rail. He left the rawhide off the hammer. He dropped inside. Five horses stood easy, watching him.

  ‘Quint!’ Tom Baily said.

  Dan spun to the sound of the voice. Baily had been coming from the outhouse. He clawed at his hog-leg, the cabin lantern light showing eyes wide with surprise. Dan cleared the holster. He felt numbness in his forearm travel quickly to his thumb. He lost feeling in his hand. The .45 Peacemaker dropped onto hay. Baily, with gun in hand, came running for the corral, fired two quick shots, the cracks echoing off canyon walls. Dan dropped and rolled, groping for the .45. Feeling eased back into his hand. By then, Baily was at the corral and had a dead bead on Dan’s head. Another shot rang out. Baily’s shoulders arched back. The revolver spun from his hand to fall inside the corral. Another shot tore a silver dollar sized chunk out of Baily’s head. He dropped forward into the corral.

  The cabin went dark. The door flew open, and three bent figures holding guns exited then split up. Dan was on his knees, the Colt in his hand. He shot the lead man, made him somersault and shot him again once he’d stopped. Dan scooted to a corral post as next to him, hay and dirt were gouged away with a shot. Mandy appeared behind the cabin. She fired twice quickly. A second man jerked. The gun flew from his hand as he splashed into the horse trough.

  The fourth man was running for the forest without boots or hat. Dan went over the top corral rail, feeling a stab of stomach and chest pain. He fired a wild shot that chipped bark. The man turned with his arm out and fired. Dan felt the zing as the bullet whizzed past his ear. Mandy fired into the forest behind the man. Dan had him in full sight. Running, he shot the man in the butt, again in the shoulder, missed completely, and shot him once more, through the back of the head. The man stumbled and slammed into a tree, bent double then slid down and lay still.

  Mandy ran toward the corral. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Four,’ Dan said. ‘Keep away from the cabin door.’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I lost feeling for a spell, but it’s all right now’ Dan realized Mandy had saved his life. Without her, he’d have been face down in corral straw bleeding to death. ‘Thanks for taking care of Tom Baily.’

  Mandy stared at him, still panting. She reached to grab a corral rail while her stomach lurched and her dinner came gushing from her mouth.

  Immediately concerned, Dan said, ‘You hit?’

  Bent with her left hand on the rail she waved her right arm behind her. ‘Stay away. I’ll be okay in a bit.’ Her Plains Stetson hung from its neck strap on her back. She kept her hair away from her face. ‘Dan,’ she said to the bottom rail. ‘I ain’t made for this killing stuff. I ain’t, I’m telling you, I ain’t.’

  ‘We got two more to go,’ Dan said.

  Chapter Ten

  It was the middle of October before Dan and Mandy and their three-horse string crossed from the Badlands, Dakota Territory, traversing the wheat fields of Nebraska and back into Kansas. The land stretched flat; air brought a film of frost during the night. Dan still preferred trail sleeping to towns and hotels. Some days were still warm and muggy.

  Once across the border in Kansas, riding side-by-side with Rowdy hauling the pack, Mandy kicked up a fuss. ‘I don’t know why we got to go back to Abilene. We can find some trail to cut southwest and head for Santa Fe. We got enough supplies. The trail will take us into New Mexico Territory, and we head west to Yuma.’

  ‘I want to see how CK is doing,’ Dan said. ‘A few days to get there, we’ll rest a week then head out to Santa Fe.’

  ‘CK is doing fine,’ Mandy said. ‘She don’t need no checking.’

  Once in northern Kansas, Dan felt sticky and decided to camp along the banks of a river he thought might be the Republican. Jagged hills surrounded them; not a cloud blocked the sun. It was getting close to November, yet the mugginess hung like a shroud during the day. He chose a grassy knoll overlooking the slow-moving water. With camp set and the horses taken care of, he pulled the bag of coffee beans and his ancient hand-grinder and set them by his saddle. His bones ached; not a sharp stab but a dull, constant presence. Mandy ground the beans and got the coffee going. Dan went to the banks of the river and stripped buck-naked then dove in.

  ‘Cold, cold, cold,’ he said. The water numbed his wounds in an icy envelope. He splashed, the water at his waist, and dipped under. He came up to see Mandy on the bank.

  She slowly peeled out of her tight, denim jeans and dropped the pink, calico blouse next to her gun belt and Stetson, before she stepped lively into the water. ‘Brr,’ she said as she pushed through the flow to his side, her brown-copper hair flowing wet behind. She smiled at him and splashed water on his face. She traced her finger along his chest scar. She studied the scar on his belly. ‘That looks ugly. It must hurt bad.’

  ‘Sometimes. The whiskey helps.’

  ‘You can’t just keep drinking whiskey all day and night.’

  ‘It don’t take that much – get up on a buzz, so I don’t think so heavy on the pain. When it’s healed good, I’ll taper off.’

  With the water to his shoulders, he eased toward the bank until he was able to lean back on his elbows against the mud. The water felt good now he was used to its cold. She followed and brushed against him, her skin slippery wet and smooth as glass with curves.

  ‘Tell me about the tin box,’ he said.

  She put her hand on his chest. ‘The eight-thousand dollars was in it, and the contract about the silver claim, the partnership.’

  ‘What were your parent’s names?’

  ‘Will and Elizabeth. My brother was Willy, nine. Pa had the copper top etched with the crown like that queen across the ocean. He thought Ma was a princess.’ She brushed him again.

  Dan used his elbows to push farther up the bank. He felt a tingle across his forehead, embarrassed. He felt other changes. She was too close. ‘The claim is in the Arizona Territory. Did your pa ever say a town or where it might be near?’

  Her face was six inches from him. She shook her head. ‘Just Arizona Territory. Dan, quit running from me.’

  ‘I ain’t running. You’re pushing too close. What’s the name of your pa’s partner?’

  She frowned. She had to push back and think. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Think. We’ll be looking for him in Yuma.’

  Her face brightened. ‘I got it. Jeremiah Dickers. I know that’s it. Jeremiah Dickers, an older man I seen a couple times – maybe fifty, a lot older than Pa. He said for Pa to bring the eight thousand and they was partners. The claim already proved silver from the mine, and they’d go in fifty-fifty.’

  ‘How did your pa know he was legit?’

  ‘He showed us some silver. And he and Pa worked a mine together when they was younger. Pa knew him.’ She brushed him again.

  Dan heaved a sigh. ‘You better either move away or put something on.’

  Mandy frowned. ‘What for? It’s just you and me in this river. You been seeing me necked in lakes and rivers since I was twelve.’

  ‘You ain’t twelve no more.’

  She stood out of the water in front of him. ‘I filled out some. That makes it good for you, don’t it?’

  ‘Maybe you ought to get out and put your clothes on.’

  ‘I know I got no experience, but you can teach me.’

  ‘That ain’t gonna happen.’

  ‘You keep running.’

  ‘Not me, you. You’re just a girl. Get out of the water and dress like I told you.’

  She stuck out her lower lip, but climbed the bank and wrung her hair
and started dressing in silence.

  Dan climbed out and dressed. He went to his saddle and pulled the whiskey bottle.

  Darkness. Dan sat next to his saddle, one swallow into the second whiskey bottle. He couldn’t stop watching her move. He felt urges about her he shouldn’t. Not her, his body and what he needed. She put more wood on the fire, the denim too tight. Her saddle was on the other side of the flames where it belonged. She packed the saddle-bags.

  ‘I’ll leave out some beans,’ she said, ‘and the grinder for morning.’

  ‘We can have some of that smoked ham,’ he said. His voice was thick – too much whiskey already.

  She stepped around the fire and knelt in front of him. ‘Are you mad with me, Dan?’

  Her face shone in the firelight. Her hair framed her youth, the green eyes, pert nose, clear perfect skin – an angel – the flower of youth – young, a girl, just a girl – young, young, young.

  He didn’t have the strength. They were together alone too much, and that had to stop. It couldn’t continue. He had to end it, somehow. His breathing quickened, became shallow. He wanted to put his hands under his armpits – sit on them – think of something else, the task. He was thinking wrong. His thoughts were dumb.

  He reached out and put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her lips to his. Her mouth opened eagerly. Her body pushed against him. He rolled on top of her and felt her arch against him. He kept rolling until she was on top of him.

  He jerked his face away. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m so ready for you.’

  ‘This ain’t gonna happen,’ he said.

  She rose on her elbows to look down at his face, her brown-copper hair hanging to brush his cheeks. ‘We gotta get something set between us before it’s too late.’

  ‘It’s already too late.’

  ‘How long can I keep loving you, Dan, and get nothing back?’

  ‘Girl, you don’t know about love. You’re too young to know.’

  ‘I know the ache of my need for you, and that I want to be with you always, us together every day and night, and how my body gets so ready for you every time we’re together. My ma was married at fifteen. She had me the age I am now. I’m ready. I’m sixteen, be seventeen next week. It’s past time for me to start having your young’uns. You got to see that, Dan.’

  ‘I belong to CK.’

  ‘Then why ain’t she here on top of you? Why don’t she spend days and nights on the trail with you?’

  ‘She has a business to run.’

  ‘I don’t hate CK. I admire her. She moved out of the whorehouse, got herself educated and got her own business, and she keeps you happy when you’re together. And she’s got enough female power to keep you from looking at me with soft eyes. She’s got to be a lot of woman to do all that.’

  ‘She’s my woman,’ Dan said. ‘Just her and that’s it.’

  ‘It’s me on the trail with you. It’s me beside you hunting down them killers. You’re the one took me outta the rain with my folks shot dead. You’re the one who made me love you. You caused it. It’s your fault.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to. I know you saved my life up there in Bismarck.’

  ‘You got to have me with you, Dan. You got a problem with your arm. You need me, and God knows I need you.’

  Dan pushed her aside off him. ‘Get over to the other side of the fire, Mandy. That kiss was because I had too much whiskey. It won’t happen again, and ain’t going no further so don’t go wishin’ and hopin’.’

  She pushed to her knees. ‘I’ll always wish and hope, Dan. That’s about all you leave me. I don’t know how long I can keep wishin’ and hopin’ before I give up.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I ain’t giving up. I got to keep thinking one day you’ll come to your senses and know I’m the only girl for you.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Dan said. ‘There’s a boy out there for you. He ain’t some shot to pieces trail tramp with nothing to give a woman. You need another couple years or so, and you’ll find the one for you.’

  Mandy stood and went around the fire and stretched out with her head on her saddle. ‘I already found him only he’s too dumb to know it.’ She sniffled and cleared her throat.

  ‘Don’t start bawlin’,’ he said.

  ‘I ain’t.’ She pulled her blanket up over her head.

  Dan stretched out with his own blanket, his Stetson low over his eyes. It wasn’t her. She just didn’t know any better. He didn’t trust himself, his own feelings and urges, and lately, he noticed how good she looked to him. One thing he knew for certain. There would be no more trail riding with the young, beautiful wisp of a girl.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the upstairs suite, Abilene street noise came through the open window. Lying back against the pillow with his usual morning pain, Dan Quint felt CK tight against him, her head on his shoulder.

  She pulled blankets up to her shoulders. ‘We better close the window. There’s a morning chill.’

  He kissed her forehead. ‘I like the air. We going downstairs for breakfast?’

  ‘Sally will have it sent up. I don’t want you out of this bed.’

  ‘I’m headed for Yuma tomorrow.’

  ‘I know.’ She hugged him tight.

  ‘Two more to go, if I can find them.’

  ‘Maybe you ought to wait another couple weeks. You’re still not completely healed.’

  ‘Nope.’ He held her tight. Her perfume filled him. He wanted her. He’d likely always want her. He thought of the girl in the boarding house and wanted to know what she was doing. He frowned with confusion. ‘Tell me what I’m going to do, CK?’

  ‘Leave her with me.’

  ‘She don’t need the influence of upstairs. She’s liable to take off after me, get herself taken by outlaws or Indians.’

  ‘You can’t control a girl in love, Dan.’

  ‘Nothing happened with her, you got to know that.’

  She leaned to kiss him wet on the mouth. ‘I know. But you like her. Maybe you’re falling for her. You keep on and something will happen.’

  ‘So, as a woman, tell me what to do.’

  CK went on her elbow, her blonde hair covering the side of her face with the bullet scar on her temple. Her blue eyes searched his face. ‘She just turned seventeen, send her to school.’

  ‘What school?’

  ‘A girl’s college run by the German-Protestant-Lutheran, Moravian Church – the Salem Female Academy. I got the brochure. You put her on a train, and you send her to Winston-Salem, North Carolina so she can get herself educated. I wrote them a month ago. I’ll front the cost.’

  ‘Don’t know when I can pay you back.’

  ‘No need for worry – happy to do it.’ She looked down at the bed sheets.

  Dan frowned. He tilted her chin up. ‘Brochure? How long you had this here brochure?’

  She kissed him again. ‘Two years.’

  A knock came at the door. ‘Breakfast,’ one of the girls said.

  Despite her face swollen and wet with tears, Mandy in her full silk dress buttoned to the throat, without a hoop, her brown-copper curls wild around her head and neck, still looked like a pretty girl on a vacation trip. Steam hissed from the train as she stood on the platform, tears flowing. Dan stood in front of her, wishing he didn’t have to do what he was doing. CK waited a block away in the buggy.

  ‘She made you do this,’ Mandy said. ‘I ain’t going.’

  ‘Yes, you are. College or boarding school.’

  ‘But we ain’t done. We ain’t finished.’

  ‘When I find them, I’ll write you.’

  ‘You won’t. You say you will but you won’t. Why are you doing this? How can you do this to me, Dan?’

  Dan’s guts churned. ‘You’ll get yourself educated. You’ll learn, not be ignorant like me.’

  He reached for her, but she stepped back. ‘I love you,’ she cried. ‘I belong to you. We got to be together.’

  ‘That ain’t gonna happen, gir
l. When the hunt is done, I’m gonna marry CK.’

  ‘No, you ain’t. You can’t.’

  ‘You’ll find somebody close to your age. You’ll see. It’ll work out, and you’ll be happy.’ He knew he talked more on guess than fact. He didn’t like himself, to betray her, to send her away, to make himself smaller in her eyes.

  She pressed the soaked handkerchief to her flooding green eyes. ‘I’ll never be happy. You’re killing my insides.’

  ‘All aboard,’ the conductor called as he passed. ‘Time to get on board, Miss.’

  Dan reached to her for a farewell hug. He wanted to hold her.

  She pushed him away. ‘Don’t come near me.’ She hiccupped with tears. ‘Don’t touch me. I hate you for breakin’ my heart, for burning my insides to cinders. I hate you for making me dead inside. I ain’t never gonna feel nothing again, and I hate you for that.’

  Dan shivered, and said, ‘You don’t mean them words, not hate.’

  The train jerked. Mandy picked up her bag and climbed up the steps. ‘I despise you. You’re old, and shot up and nothing. You let her think your thoughts, have her way with you, make you do what she wants. You let her twist you to her way of thinking. I hate you for that. I want you to die, Dan Quint. You die in the desert all alone with nobody near you. Die with nobody, not one person to mourn you. Not me, I ain’t never gonna think about you again.’

  The train jerked ahead while she stood with the door open, just inside, back from the entrance.

  ‘Mandy,’ he said. He stood stiff. Her words cut into him like .45 slugs. The pain in his chest came from more than old wounds. He couldn’t believe her.

  She backed away to the open door as the train rolled ahead.

  ‘You made me dead,’ she cried before the door closed. ‘I hate you, and I want you dead too, as dead all over as I am inside.’ She turned away and stumbled out of sight, bent in tears, the handkerchief pushed against her face, as the train rolled on down the tracks.

  When day turned dark, hours after the train had left with Mandy, the Silver Street Saloon and Pleasure Parlor was noisy with ranch hands and gamblers and drifters. CK and Dan sat at their table in the corner around from the entrance doors. They had just finished dinner though Dan didn’t eat much. He felt the ache of loss, and pain in his chest, not the loss of a lover but of a friend who had shared close events with him, and now hated him. His whiskey glass sat on the table in front of him. He sighed and looked around. He was weary of the look and sound and the foul air of the saloon, tired of men in crowds, drunk and loud. He missed the clean, quiet smell of the trail. He sipped whiskey and stared at the table top, the bite of Mandy’s parting words still clawed at him.