Desperate Hearts (12 page)

“
I got you a new shirt at
the dry-goods store.” He stretched the thin fabric tight and zipped
the knife along the buttons. A few of them shot to the floor with a
faint clicking sound.

Her mumbling grew softer.

Another quick slice or two and the shirt was
in ribbons. Kyla seemed to be none the wiser but he had no such
advantage. Again her slender waist and soft, rounded breasts were
laid bare before him. And he felt like an egg-sucking weasel for
looking. In truth, though, he was only a man. Impatiently, he
grabbed the pillowcase from the end of the bed and threw it over
her chest and shoulders.

Getting her pants off proved to be much
simpler than he expected. She lay quietly as tears leaked from the
outer corners of her closed eyes.

Suddenly he noticed that her russet hair was
the only spot of color on the bed—the rest of her was as pale as
the sheet he covered her with. In fact, she seemed to have slipped
farther away from him and this room, as if she’d given up.

For the first time, Jace really began to
worry.

* * *

Was this what it felt like to die?

Perhaps, Kyla thought, and it wasn’t so bad.
The pain in her arm faded, and the little that remained didn’t seem
to matter now. She floated in a safe, untroubled place where she
felt light and free. Oddly, she sometimes seemed to be looking down
upon herself as she lay covered to her collarbones with a clean
white sheet. Her bare wounded arm was wrapped in clean white
bandages. A lot of activity was going on around her, and it was all
so crisply detailed, so clear. The smell of hot candle wax and
travel dust. The feel of the mattress under her body. The long
shadows that arched up the walls. Wind rustling in the trees
outside.

She saw it all, felt it, smelled it. And yet
she was not part of it.

No, dying wasn’t unbearable, but it seemed
sad to leave this world in a strange room, with only strangers to
watch.

There was Jace Rankin. Hunched in a chair
next to her, he sat with his elbows on his knees and watched her
intently in the wavering candlelight. He massaged his forehead and
pushed his long hair back so that it rested behind his shoulders.
She was wary of his presence. But she was comforted, too, as if she
had known him for a long time. Or was meant to know him now. His
eyes were piercing blue, burning like low flames in his haggard,
beard-shadowed face. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

Without surprise, she saw Many Braids on her
other side. She felt no fear of him now. He chanted in a low,
lulling tone while he whisked a fan of feathers over her, head to
foot. Now and then he stooped from his incredible height to
sprinkle a few grains of pungent-smelling powder on her head and
each shoulder. Every time he performed this ritual, she was pulled
back into her body, pulled back into the searing agony of her
pain.

She was tired—it was too hard to decide what
to do. It would be easier to float away again, to drift on to a
place where her parents and others who had once loved her now
waited, and even beckoned to her.

There was her mother, sweet-faced and
smiling, with her arms open to her.

“
Mama!” she called, joy and
tears making her throat tight. Oh, it was Mother—she had missed her
so much.

Kyla wanted to run to her, to be held in her
arms again, to hide her face in her neck, and inhale her scent of
honeysuckle. She hadn’t known such comfort, such loving security
since the winter night her mother died. It was very tempting to
offer herself up to it now. Love was so utterly lacking in her
life, so completely lost to her.

To drift to love and safety, where Tom
Hardesty would never trouble her again . . .

But something kept her tethered to the earth
and stopped her from reaching for familiar, outstretched hands.
Some reason that eluded her and waited in a mist ahead of her.

“
You stand with one foot in
each world,” Many Braids told her. “You must decide which you will
choose,”

Yes, she must decide if it was worth the
struggle to go on, if the thing that bound her to the living was
worth finding. Kyla gazed down at the fragile body on the bed, her
arm and her heart ravaged. Perhaps it wasn’t worth it at all.

Jace looked at her. His expression was pale
and blank, but disbelief colored his words. He sat forward. “You’re
too young and strong to die. Too stubborn.”

He gripped her hand where it lay on the
mattress. She didn’t mind now—in fact, it was comforting. He spoke
to her, and his voice was louder, almost angry. “Kyla, are you
going to let that son of a bitch Tom Hardesty do this to you? Are
you going to let him win?”

She pulled against the energy that was
dragging her back toward the bed. No, no, it didn’t matter now if
Hardesty “won.” That all seemed trivial now, all of it.

But once more, that nameless elusive thing
called to her from the mist, drawing her closer. Revenge?

“
We still have work to do
here,” he went on. “Things aren’t settled up between you and
me.”

Her arm throbbed, and her body grew heavy
again, as though flatirons were tied to her limbs. Many Braids’s
chanting echoed in her head and ricocheted off the shadows in the
corners.

“
Kyla.” She felt Jace’s
voice in her heart.

Chanting.

The bounty hunter’s words.

Ice blue eyes.

The sharp-smelling powder.

The room whirled at a dizzying speed.
Colors, voices, textures, and scents all clashed together in a mix
that took Kyla’s breath. She plunged deeper and deeper until
nothing but night and darkness engulfed her and covered her like a
wave.

Nothing but empty, dark silence.

* * *

It was bright now. Kyla could hear someone
breathing. It was not loud or labored. More like the deep, quiet
breaths of a sleeper.

Leather and horses. She smelled them close
by.

Barely conscious, she turned her head toward
the sound but her eyes were slow to open. And it was so harshly
light. It flooded her face and painted the insides of her lids
brilliant red.

Dreams, there had been so many dreams, wild
and frightening.

Finally she opened her eyes just enough to
see Jace, asleep next to her on top of the bed she had dreamed
about. The shaft of light that touched her face fell upon his
well-formed torso. He lay on his side, sheltering her with his
body. His hand rested on her uninjured arm as if to protect her.
Even in slumber he looked exhausted.

Dream or not, she was content to find him
there. Kyla let her drugged sleep overtake her again.

* * *

“
Guess where I got this,”
Albert DeGroot said and held up a silver dollar for Sheriff Fred
Winslow’s inspection.

Fred was much more interested in the display
of plug tobacco on the counter. He made a face at the scanty
selection. “Albert, how come you don’t get that Lorillar chaw
anymore? That was a lot better than any of this stuff. These just
anger up my insides something awful.”

“
Hang it Fred, don’t bother
with that now. Look at this dollar.” He held it a little
higher.

Ever since Misfortune’s newspaper went bust
a few years earlier, Albert had considered it his solemn duty to
dispense news to anyone who stopped by his store with a mind to
listen. He wasn’t much for telling a man something straight off,
though. He liked to drag it out for the best possible effect. Today
he looked as if holding back was going to give him the fantods.

Fred looked at the coin. “Well, it’s just a
dollar.”

“
It ain’t—I got it from
Jace Rankin right here at this counter.
Last night.
”

The sheriff’s hand froze on the tobacco and
he stared at the silver dollar. It gleamed like an evil eye in a
shaft of morning sunlight. “Jace Rankin? Here?”

The shopkeeper put the coin on the counter
and crossed his arms over his chest, looking very pleased with
Fred’s reaction. “Yes, indeedy. He’s squatting in Chloe’s old house
and paying Mildred to bring him his meals. Says he’s got a sick boy
he’s taking care of.”

“
Jace Rankin,” Fred moaned
to himself, feeling his dyspepsia kick up. That bounty hunter
caused a helluva ruckus the last time he was in Misfortune, and
Fred was getting too old and too fat to deal with big ruckuses. Why
would Rankin come back here? There was no reason for anyone to come
here anymore, but by God, that didn’t stop the parade of strangers
traipsing through this dying little town. And in Fred’s mind, two
people in one year constituted a parade. “Didn’t he settle his
score with that McGuire feller?”

Albert drummed his index finger on the coin.
“This don’t have anything to do with McGuire. I think Rankin is
here for another reason altogether. Maybe he’s hiding out. Maybe
that story about a sick boy is something he just made up.”

“
Oh, bushwa, Albert. Who’d
chase
him
?”

“
Well, there’s one way to
find out." Albert peered at him over the tops of spectacles.
“You’re the sheriff here. You could go ask. After all, he’s
trespassing.”

Fred shook his head and took one step
backward. “No, sir. Not in my opinion he ain’t. Anyways, I’m more
than willing to look the other way. We’ll just wait and see if
something happens.”

* * *

Insistent knocking brought Jace out of his
doze. Automatically he reached for his gun before he realized
someone was pounding on the door downstairs.

He glanced at Kyla. She still slept—and he
knew it was only sleep, not unconsciousness. Her fever had finally
broken just before dawn.

The knocking continued. God, it was probably
that nosy Mildred DeGroot. Now that this crisis was finally over,
he might be able to do some of the cooking and be rid of her once
and for all. She had delivered the meals they had agreed on, but
her personality grated on his nerves like sandpaper on a
sunburn.

He sat up on the edge of the mattress. His
back creaked and his knee joints popped. All the hours and days
spent in the spindle-back chair had stiffened him like an old piece
of leather. He’d finally decided to lie down for a couple of hours
but his muscles were still tight. He jammed his shirttails into his
jeans and headed for the hallway in his stocking feet.

When he got downstairs, he saw Mrs.
DeGroot’s bulky shape through the lace curtain on the front door
window. She had opened the screen door and leaned close to the
glass to peer in.

He knew her curiosity itched at her like
woolen underwear. Over the last four days, she’d asked all kinds of
questions about him, and “the boy,” and tried every way possible to
wangle an invitation into the house. Jace managed to deflect her
prying with flinty looks and by simply not answering. But she would
not give up.

He heard her turn the knob. Crossing the
parlor in long, swift strides, he yanked open the door.

She jumped back a good three feet, no small
trick for a woman of her girth. Her multiple chins quivered
slightly, and with her hand on her chest, she stared at him with an
expression of mild horror.

“
Mr. Rankin! Land sakes,
you gave me a start. I—I thought maybe you left. I came by earlier
and no one answered.”

Jace conceded that might be possible. The
last couple of nights had been a stretch of hell on earth and he
was worn out. Glancing past Mrs. DeGroot he could see that the day
was well past its midpoint.

“
Is the boy any better?”
She tried to see around his shoulder into the house. “I’d be happy
to come up and have a look. What folks are left around here have
come to rely on me for their doctoring since Miles Sherwood passed
away.”

She babbled as much as her husband did. How
either of them got a word in was beyond him. He had to work to keep
from closing the door in her face.

“
The boy will be fine, and
I imagine he’ll be hungry.”

She dragged her gaze from his face and
gestured at a basket sitting on the porch swing. “Well . . . good,
good. I have more beef broth for him, just like you wanted, and
fried ham and potatoes for you.”

He took the wicker basket and fished around
in his pocket for a dollar. The food smelled good, and tired or
not, now that he knew Kyla would live he felt his appetite stirring
again.

Mildred snatched the coin from his hand as
smoothly as a pickpocket. Given the lack of residents it
Misfortune, she was probably making more money cooking for him than
Albert could drum up at his store. “Is he sick with something
catching? I don’t recall that you said what ails the boy.” She
peered at him again.

“
I’m glad to hear that your
memory works, Mrs. DeGroot. Thanks for the food.” He shut the door
and went to the kitchen on legs that felt like lead.

* * *

Kyla woke as soon as Jace left the room. She
lay on her back and let her eyes roam over her surroundings.
Everything seemed familiar but only in a dreamlike way. This room
had belonged to a woman, she thought. The flowered paper on the
walls, the lace curtains at the windows—no man would have chosen
them. Maybe they had finally reached Jace’s friends in Misfortune,
and this room belonged to the woman named Chloe.

As consciousness settled on her she became
aware of two things: her arm felt much better, and she didn’t have
a stitch on under the sheet that covered her.

Just a heartbeat ago she would have been
furious, outraged. Now she was too weak to do more than note the
multitude of questions that spun through her mind. She knew she had
been ill; she had a vague memory of a fever yesterday on the trail.
After that, everything was a blank.