Fair Is the Rose (15 page)

Pete turned the revolver on Cain. His hand trembled wildly. "Let her go!" he screeched, his face filled with the horror of one killing and possibly another.

Cain hesitated a split second, perhaps on account of Pete's youth.
A mistake.
The rattled boy squeezed off a shot. The bullet cut across the muscle of Cain's arm and ricocheted off the wallboards.

Cain shoved her out of the way and lunged. The boy struggled valiantly to retain hold of his weapon, but he was no match for a hardened outlaw who moved with lightning speed. Marmet's revolver was in Cain's possession before Christal could gasp.

"Don't hurt my son! Don't hurt him!" Pete's father shouted as Cain held his gun to Pete. The chains rattled as the old man futilely tried to free himself. The boy cowered on the ground.

"You can't do this!" Christal cried out, pulling on Cain's arm. She then ran to the boy and took him in her arms to protect him from Cain's rage.

Cain towered over both of them, his face stone cold. He cocked the gun, and she knew the instinct to kill ran strong in him, especially now with his own blood dripping down his arm.

Christal looked at him, terror on her face.
She whispered, "Macaulay," in supplication,
then
turned her head away, unable to watch.

His gaze never left her. Slowly, Cain lowered the gun. The murderous rage on his face softened into acceptance. He straightened, tucked Marmet's revolver in his gun belt, and picked up the rifle where it lay by the corpse. He grabbed her to her feet rather cruelly, almost as if she were as lifeless as the Winchester. She put her arm out to stop his rough treatment and her hand met with warm, sticky blood.

She looked at him. Blood dripped from his left fingers, a carmine red so deep, it seemed black. He walked her to the door. It left a trail across the raw floorboards.

Sickened, she met his gaze. His expression brooked no disobedience. He motioned for her to leave with him. The hold on her arm was becoming painful; nonetheless, she glanced behind her at the prisoners.

All six of them were shocked at the outcome of the escape attempt. Marmet was dead, his body almost lying in their laps. Outside, through the broken panes of glass, she could hear shouts and see lanterns sway up the gul-

"C'mon," Cain rasped. Taking her arm in a death grip, he pulled her out the door.

"Let me stay with them," she begged, stumbling down the crude wooden stairs in the dark.

"No."

"They'll kill them."

"No."

"I want to be with them." She clutched at his chest. "I knew Pete had the gun. He showed it to me when I gave him his dinner. I'm as much to blame. If they pay, I must pay also. I can't let Kineson kill those men because—"

"No," he repeated, and pushed her ahead of him.

"Oh, God.
Please, Macaulay, please . . ." Her last word came out as a gasp.

Cain swayed precariously; the old banister swayed with him. He held on to it, but the rotten wood gave way. She grabbed him just before the banister clattered to the ground below. He fell against her, and she somehow kept him upright though his weight was twice hers.

He began to slur his words. "You don't understand, Christal . . . you don't understand . . . just
play this
out. It's got to be played out. . . ."

She didn't know what he was saying. He was an enigma. He'd always been. He'd saved her from being abused by the gang, but he was in it as thick as he could be. Was he sinner or saint?

"You—listening to me—Christal?" he whispered.

"Kineson—"

"I'll handle Kineson . . . just play this out. Goddammit—we'll all get killed—
promise
me you'll play this out."

"Oh, God, you're bleeding so much . . ." she whispered, feeling the warmth of his blood on her hand. Her insides screamed not to help him. He was the outlaw who might ultimately prove her ruin, but the woman inside her, the lady bred to a kinder,
more gentle
life, couldn't not help him.

Without giving him his promise, she walked him down the stairs to a ramshackle tavern chair and lit a lantern left by one of the outlaws. She reached beneath her gown and tore her petticoat to strips, unmindful that it was her last. She bound his arm, and at one point while his wounded arm rested on the table, she reached for his revolver in the slim hope that she might be able to defend the prisoners upstairs from Kineson's wrath, but Cain grabbed her, his face expressionless either from pain or from the fact that he'd expected her to try for his gun all the time. Caught, she continued to bind his arm as if the attempt had never occurred. The moment passed in silence, neither of them willing to talk about it.

"Cain, we heard shots!" Kineson barked from the saloon's broken doorway. He held up his lantern to further illuminate the dusty interior.

"Marmet's dead." Cain
grit
his teeth as she wound the bandages tight to stop the bleeding.

"What the hell happened?" Kineson
entered,
his Do-berman eyes on Christal, who did her best to hide her shaking hands and keep her attention on Cain's arm.

"Marmet was guzzling the whiskey again. He was so drunk, he didn't recognize me. He shot at me—
guess
he thought I was one of the prisoners. I killed him."

Her hands quit shaking. She stared at Cain, who refused to meet her gaze.

"Damn fool," Kineson whispered under his breath. He sent the rest of his men upstairs to fetch the body and watch the prisoners.

Slowly, Cain's gaze rose to meet hers. She wondered if her face gave away her feelings. He was a fraud. On the outside he was the terrifying gunfighter Macaulay Cain, but on the inside he was someone else, someone possessing mercy and justice. Someone, perhaps, very much
like
her.

She lifted her hand to touch the hard planes of his face. Almost pleadingly, she whispered, "Macaulay . . ."

He jerked his head away from her hand and ruthlessly broke eye contact. Shutting her out, he stood and nodded for her to go to the door.

Before, she might have had to be dragged. This time, she complied. She couldn't fight a man who had saved her life and now, strangely, Pete's. Her emotions in upheaval, she walked to the door and waited while he got a lantern.

Kineson watched her, his eyes glittering with anger. She knew he'd always liked Cain's roughness with her. He'd always enjoyed the fight in her. Now something had changed between them and Christal could see Kineson knew it.

Cain took her arm and they left the saloon. Kineson's last angry words followed them as he instructed the men who'd brought down the body to dump it in the gorge "fer enough away so the fool don't stink."

A breed which fails to honor its heroes

will
soon have no heroes to honor.

J
ohn
S.
T
illey on the
C
onfederacy

 
              
H
arvard
U
niversity
1959

The ransom drop was tomorrow. Tuesday would be the beginning of her life.
Or the end of it.

Christal boiled coffee, serving the men who grumbled and groped at her. Supper was over and some of them were already bedding down for the night, too anxious to think any more on what the next day might bring. It had grown even colder and the weather made the men jittery. Cold fingers didn't shoot as well as warm ones. Kineson was in the foulest mood of all. He took his coffee, and when she tried to walk away, he viciously tripped her. She fell onto the hard ground and the coffeepot spilled into the fire with a hiss.

"Maybe I'll just take you with us on our ride outta here. What do you think of that, girlie? Cain can't use you forever. When am I gonna get my turn?"

Cain rose from the shadows by the chimney, but he didn't help her up.

She got to her feet, outrage burning in her eyes. She hated Kineson almost as much as she hated Didier. Unable to stop it, she let her anger have its head. "You'd better kill me now, then, because I'll never let you touch

me
."

Suddenly she felt Cain's hands on her, pulling her back.

Kineson
stood,
red fury on his face.

Cain lifted a blanket over his shoulders and without a word dragged her into the woods. Kineson shouted behind him, "She's coming with us, Cain. I'll have a go at her sometime. You owe me that much!"

Cain said nothing.

It was too cold to go to the falls. Instead he brought her beneath the sheared-off side of the gorge, where they found protection from the wind in a grove of aspens. He flung the blanket over him and sat down, forcing her alongside. She wished she'd had the courage to pull from his embrace, but she was cold; she didn't have a shawl left to her name. Surrendering, she fell back against his chest and allowed him to pull the blanket over her.

A full moon lit the night woods. She could make out the quivering
leaves
overhead and, if she'd wanted to, Cain's stony expression. They'd been fortunate that it hadn't rained since she and the other Overland passengers had been taken captive. Like most outlaws, Kineson's men had no tents. Bivouacking wasn't a hardship on them.

Cain moved, throwing his arm across her chest to hold her closer. She couldn't look at his face. She knew he wouldn't have met her gaze anyway. They hadn't spoken all day, not about his stiff, hurting arm, nor about what he'd done to save them last night. He wanted it that way. But she didn't. She wanted to know everything about him. Especially what had changed him into a hardened
outlaw.