Fair Is the Rose (41 page)

"Stop!"
Christal giggled and ran farther into the snow-covered prairie. A snowball pelted her back, then another and another. If she hadn't borrowed Ivy's cloak, she'd be soaked.

"We don't get much snow in Georgia, but we Rebs know how to make the most of it!" Macaulay scooped up another handful of the freezing white stuff and ran toward her.

She screamed and ran into the endless plains. Behind her, Noble was just a tiny weatherboard outpost in a calm, flat sea of white. "This is war!" she squealed, and tried to get her own ammunition before Macaulay could catch her, but she didn't have a chance. She barely had a handful of snow before he tackled her to the ground
,laughing
.
       

"Villain!" she cried out.

"Yankee!" he retorted, as if that were the worst insult of all. But then he smiled and kissed her. And she was so
distracted,
she didn't see the fistful of snow until he had
smashed it in her hair.

"Oooooh!"
She shoved him off and sat up. Her hair was a thick, wet tangle, its pins scattered in the snow like pine needles.

"I win," he whispered, and kissed her again.

They'd had a wonderful morning. No one in the saloon had risen yet, so they had the luxury of breakfasting alone. Christal had fried eggs with salt pork and made a pot of thick black coffee. Macaulay had been the one to offer a walk. The sun was bright and warm, and the snow wasn't too deep; she couldn't refuse. She'd borrowed Ivy's cloak from the peg in the kitchen and off they'd walked, hand in hand.
Until Macaulay had pelted her with a snowball.

"You beast, it'll take an hour for me to dry my hair," she said to him when they broke apart. In playful revenge, she gathered a fistful of snow and poised to hit his head with it. But his hand shot out and froze hers in midair; his Stetson didn't even slip from his head.

"Unchivalrous Rebel!" she whispered as he forced her
hand to her side.

"That's a contradiction in terms, ma'am." He smiled and tipped his hat to her.

A fatal error.
She flipped the black Stetson off his head and, with her free hand, broke the snowball in
his
 
hair
, rubbing it in for good measure.

He tumbled her back onto the ground. The snow
made a cold, downy mattress. She was laughing as she struggled within his arms.

But then something in her face—an expression maybe —seemed to move him. He took her face in his hands and his gaze became solemn and piercing, as if searching to see the expression again.

Her smile began to fade.

"There's that girl," he whispered, his own expression troubled, yet exhilarated.

"What girl?" she asked, unsure what he was talking about.

"The little girl in the picture . . . when you laugh, I can see her."

Their eyes locked. Her heart filled with an old familiar pain. She wished what he said were true, but somehow it seemed impossible. The girl was gone forever. Slowly she turned away so he wouldn't see her eyes fill with homesickness and hurt.

As if a wall had been built up between them, he silently rose from her. He stood like a thrown bronco rider, stiff, broken, and defeated, his wet chaps skintight from the melting snow. He brought her to her feet and, arm in
arm,
they trudged back to Noble, the unasked questions a dark, thundering cloud on the horizon.

"It's a lie!
A lie, Ah tell
you!"

Christal and Macaulay entered the saloon to find Dixiana near tears.

Again she sobbed, "It's awl a lie!"

John Jameson, a wealthy rancher from outside the town, stood between Dixi and Faulty. He was a rusty-tiaired man in a black suit and scarlet cravat. He shot Macaulay a glance, then muttered, "You the sheriff?"

Cain nodded.

Jameson pointed to Dixi. "Arrest her, Sheriff. She stole all my money. I kept it in a green silk purse. I had it last night and now it's gone."

Faulty interjected, "Now there ain't
no
reason to go and accuse Dixi of nothing. She don't steal, sir, I know it."

"Arrest her, Sheriff. I had three hundred dollars in that purse!"

Macaulay slowly removed his coat. "When did you last see it?"

"I had it in the whore's bedroom. I remember quite clearly I removed the purse from my vest pocket and put it next to the bed."

"No, no, you never did! Ah never saw any purse!" Dixi began sobbing. Her rouge trickled down onto her chin.

"There, there," Christal whispered, and clasped her hand in her own. She looked to Macaulay for help.

Macaulay said nothing.

"The slut ought to be hanged for stealing a man's money. No-good whore," Jameson spat out.

"Don't talk to her like that! She didn't steal your damned money!" Christal could have bitten her tongue, but Jameson's words were too cruel. Saying those things about Dixi was like kicking a child.

"You don't have any proof she stole your money. I can't arrest the girl with
no
evidence of a crime," Cain said, taking a seat at one of the tables.

"Oh, yes, I have evidence." Jameson pointed
tc
Faulty. "This man right here saw me with the purse not
3
minute before I went up to the whore's room. I paid m) tab and he commented on the amount of money in m) purse."

"Is this true?" Macaulay asked. Faulty looked rather sick. "Yes."

"And the whore saw me put on my clothes this morning. There's no green silk purse anywhere. So where did it go? She stole it, I tell you!" He pointed to Christal. "These girls are probably all in cahoots!"

Hesitantly, Christal looked at Macaulay. His face was a cipher; she didn't know what he was thinking, and it bothered her. She, Dixi, and Ivy weren't in cahoots, but she couldn't shake the feeling a seed of doubt had suddenly been planted. She had, after all, stolen money from him once.

"I still don't think that's proof this woman stole anything," Macaulay said finally.

Jameson turned beet red, his face clashing with the red in his hair. "That's for the judge to decide, not you. Your job is to put this girl in jail until the man arrives. If I may remind you, Sheriff, I am on the town council. I was one of the men who brought you here to Noble."

Cain was silent. Finally he said, "I'll need to check out her room." He turned and went up the stairs. Christal followed at his heels.

"She didn't steal that man's purse. You know she didn't," she whispered as Cain entered Dixi's room. He went over to the rickety bureau and forced open a drawer. There was nothing in there but stockings, garters, and a patched cotton corset. He opened another and another. There was nothing but clothing.

He walked to the neatly made bed. He ripped off the covers and upended the thin mattress. No green silk purse anywhere. Quietly he looked around in every barren corner. There seemed no other place to hide anything.

"She wouldn't steal from that man. I know Dixi—"

"Christal, it doesn't matter," he said ominously, "Jameson's a pillar of this community—such as this hellhole is—and there isn't a judge in the world who's going to believe Dixi over him." He looked at her. "If you know anything about this purse, or you can persuade Dixi to tell us something about it, that's the best you can do for her. Jameson's going to put her in jail, if not."

"No, not Jameson.
You.
You're going to put her in jail," she spat out, tears glistening in her eyes. "And you know she didn't steal the purse!"

Cain took her by the arms. "Listen carefully to what I have to say. It may not be pretty, but it's the truth. The judge is going to come in here and see Dixi as a known whore, a woman with a shadowy past. Nobody will believe her; everybody will believe Jameson. My protests in this matter will be a howl in the wilderness unless somebody can find that purse."

"What if he's lying?" she asked numbly. "What if John Jameson has some grudge against Dixi and he's just lying about the purse being missing because he wants to hurt her?"

Cain stared at her. "Why would he do such a thing?"

"I don't know. You'd have to ask him, and he'd never' tell the truth. So Dixi's as good as convicted. Whether she took his money or not, she's going to go to jail."

"Not if you can convince her to find the purse."

"You talk as if you don't believe she didn't steal it." Christal stared at him, trying hard to hide the pain in her eyes.
An asylum for the criminally insane.
You do believe me?—oh, you must believe me!

Suddenly she turned away from him, unable to meet his gaze. The end had finally come. If he couldn't believe Dixi, then he'd never believe her, no matter how emphatically he said he would.
An asylum for the criminally insane.
Would she see revulsion in his eyes? Her heart cracked and shattered.

"C'mon," he said grimly, taking her arm. She followed.

Downstairs Cain confronted Jameson. "I didn't find the purse upstairs. When the judge gets here you can press charges. Until then Dixiana will remain here under my supervision."

"Is that all you'll do?" Jameson turned red again.

Macaulay nodded.

Jameson glanced at Christal,
then
gave Cain a nasty smile.
"Fine.
Do nothing, Sheriff. But when I go before the judge I'll see all these girls prosecuted. This was too crafty a theft for Dixiana to do it all by herself. They were all
involved,
I know it, including the whore on your arm."

Cain grabbed the man around the throat, screeching a chair across the floor with a violent shriek. Christal gasped and ran to him to keep him from killing the man. She didn't know what triggered Cain's anger—whether it was his fear that the man wanted to prosecute her or whether it was because he had called her a whore— regardless, he quickly had Jameson in a death grip.