Fair Is the Rose (45 page)

Faulty nodded wearily.
"All right, all right.
You went and broke me.
All you girls.
Take the whole damned kitty, Christal. It ain't gonna help now."

She cringed at his dramatics; it only increased her guilt, but she told herself again and again, she was doing the right thing. With her gone, Cain wouldn't have any need to bother him. Faulty didn't know it yet, but her leaving was his good fortune.

The money was in a tin box hidden behind the jugs of sarsaparilla. She retrieved it, then counted out her due—exactly seven nickels—with Faulty's gaze monitoring her every move. She then put the canister back, but one coin slipped from her hand and rolled beneath the bar. Shuddering to explore the dusty, unclean darkness beneath the bar, she reached for it nonetheless, unwilling to let even one precious nickel out of her possession.

In the void, her hand came in contact with a silken object. Dismayed, she drew it out. It was, indeed, a dirty green silk purse.

"Whoooeee, is Dixiana gonna be mad at you, Sheriff," Faulty murmured as Christal handed him the purse.
"Looks like the thing's been here all along.
It must've fallen off the bar when Jameson went to pay his bill, then it got kicked underneath." He opened it and counted out three hundred and two dollars and change.

Cain took the purse. "I'll take it back to him."

"Sure." Faulty scratched his head. "But do you think, Sheriff, you could send Dixi back here right away, if it ain't too much
bother
? I could sure use a girl around here tonight. I had three of 'em just yesterday, you know," he added accusingly.

Cain nodded, not acknowledging he was the one responsible. He took Christal's hand in his and they went to the jail.

Mechanically, as if moving in a trance, Christal helped Dixi dress while Macaulay went to Jameson's to return the purse. Dixiana complained the entire time, though Christal's thoughts were elsewhere, somberly dwelling on Cain and their future.

"Men!"
Dixi groused, straightening her black knitted stockings and rebuckling her garters. "Ah told that sheriff Ah had nothing to do with that man's money being gone. And does he believe me? No!"

"He needed proof. You know that." Absentmindedly Christal hooked the back of Dixi's corset.

"Why do they always have to have proof? Why can't they just take your word for it?" Dixi faced her. "That damned Macaulay Cain! He could have asked Faulty, he could have asked you or Ivy. Ah don't steal. Ah don't have to. Mah gentlemen are good enough to me without me stealing from them. Why do they never believe us, Christal?"

Christal didn't answer. She just stared down at the scar on her palm, her face drawn and somber.

"Darlin', you never did tell me where you got that scar."

Christal closed her palm. With a bitter curve to her lips, she drew Dixi's dress over her. "I don't know, Dixi. All I know is that some people will never be convinced of the truth."

"Don't Ah know it." Dixi adjusted her corset, a maneuver that required a fair amount of shimmying and jiggling. All the while she ranted and raved like a politician. "But someday that's all gonna change! Mark mah words, Christal, Ah'm gonna go out and vote in that there next election, yes sirree! We're lucky we live in the territory. We've had that vote since '69 and Ah'm takin' it seriously now. Things is gonna change 'round here. Ah might even run for justice of the peace just to show 'em all. They had a woman do that down in South Pass, why not here?"

Dixi stared at her, indignant, as if somehow Christal could answer that question.

"I'd vote for you, Dixi," Christal offered.

"Well, Ah'm thinkin' about it, don't you think Ah'm not." She hooked her front, shoved her skirts down over her garters, and walked out of the jail, a free woman.

"Faulty's waiting for you at the saloon, Dixi." Macaulay entered the jail, a hard, unyielding expression on his face whenever he looked at Christal.

"No apology, Sheriff?" Dixiana sniffed.

"I did my job, that's all." He turned to Christal. "Are you ready?"

"Where y'all goin?"
Dixi gazed at Cain, then Christal. Cain crossed his arms over his chest, as if defying Christal to refute his answer.

She didn't.

"I'm taking Christal away for a while. I've got a cabin up in the mountains. She's going to stay with me there."

"So you're leavin' us too, Sheriff? Why, you just got here." Dixi looked at Cain and raised an eyebrow. Christal wasn't sure if Dixi was sorry Cain was leaving or not. He was an unpredictable, intimidating man; Dixi preferred inexperienced, adulating boys. Still, Dixi was attracted to Cain. Even now Christal could see it. Dixi had always done a poor job of hiding it.

Cain cleared his throat. "I'll be comin' down now and again to take care of what needs to be done. This town doesn't need a sheriff on hand every minute. I'll be around if you need me."

"Oh, Ah hope so," Dixi answered, a sarcastic smile playing on her pretty lips. "Ah mean, Ah wouldn't want someone else around here missin' something and me gettin' away with another crime."

His mouth twisted ruefully. "There wasn't any help for it. If it'd been up to me, I never would have made you come here, you know it."

"Yeah, yeah, tell that to the justice of the peace. Ah'm runnin' for office, haven't you heard?"

As if he couldn't help himself, he chuckled. Dixi gave him a swat, and Christal felt a strange jealousy burn her insides.

"You take care now, Christal.
All right?"
Dixi said in farewell.

"You too, Dixiana."
Almost forlornly, Christal watched her go, the jealousy having burned itself away. She didn't think she'd ever forget her. Dixi was a memorable sort. But Dixi would be all right. She might even win that office.

Christal's eyes slid to Cain. There was nothing more to take care of, except to leave.

He nodded to the table. "Take that package and bring it with us."

"What is it?"

"Look."

She opened one corner of the large package. A sky-blue wool fabric peeked out of the tear.

"Do you like it? Jan told me you were admiring it. It'll make a pretty dress. Better than the one you have on." He moved closer and caressed her upper arms, his hands like warm wrought iron.

"It's beautiful. Thank you." Slowly she rewrapped the fabric and wondered if this trip they were about to take was only a delay, an artificial manufacturing of time. She never told Cain about it, but the half-breed still haunted her, touching an innate fear even when all logic told her he had moved on. Still, when she closed her eyes he was there, staring at her with the same soulless expression as her uncle's, reminding her that at any time, all she had to live for might be taken away.

"We got a long ride to the cabin." He took the package from her.

"Whose cabin is it?"

"It's just a place I used to go when I rode with Kineson. We'd hide out there after a robbery. It's a trapper's cabin in the middle of goddamned nowhere. If you want to lose yourself, girl, it's the place to be."

He led her outside. His old
Ap
was waiting, loaded with saddlebags full of provisions. Above, the night sky was scattered with stars so white and radiant, they seemed as unreal as fairy dust.

Macaulay helped her mount,
then
swung up behind her. "Say good-bye to Noble, Christal," he said as the
Ap
began to jog eastward. "If it's up to me, you'll never see it again. We'll go to Washington in the spring."

She gazed at the snow-patched prairie tinged indigo in the moonlight and thought of her uncle. Where was he now? Hot on her trail or halfway around the world? She didn't know. That was the nightmare.

"You're so sure about everything, Macaulay, but you don't know what waits ahead."

"The only thing waiting is this."

He turned her head and surprised her with a kiss, one that was long and lingering and made her forget everything but her need for him, a need she resented as much as she embraced because it was not under her control. Proof of this fact came when she found her hand clutching the scratchy wool of his greatcoat as if begging for more, and ultimately, it was he who ended the kiss, to calmly rein the Ap eastward, where the mountains rose above the night clouds like a great blue heaven.

By morning they had reached the cabin, following the North Popo Agie River to its source, a lake breathlessly suspended between glacier and mountain. The log cabin stood in a valley that in springtime would be covered by tender green grass. Now it was only a snowy crevice, wedged between cathedrals of rock.

At first, Christal wondered how they would fare in the one-room cabin with no windows or comforts, but after Macaulay built a fire in the hearth, she found the stone fireplace large enough to keep the room quite warm. And at least there was furniture, if one counted chairs made of twigs with the bark still on the wood, a rickety table as scarred as the Southern army, and a bedstead, again made of rough timber, the corners held together with rawhide. Outside, there was timber to burn, and the lake held plenty of fish. They would do all right.
For a while.

She placed the bolt of sky-blue wool on the dusty table. Sunlight streamed into the cabin through the open door. Outside, she could see Cain hobbling the Ap. The sun was just appearing over War Bonnet Peak and on the other side of the valley, the top of Pingora was tinged a rosy pink, the colors in the sky a sight no painter could ever capture. Beneath the blue granite, an azure lake was alive with light bouncing off the snow. Cain had called it Lonesome Lake, and Christal could understand why. The little valley was surrounded on three sides by walls of stone that shot into the sky. It was the perfect hiding place, even more isolated than Falling Water. She doubted even Indians had showed up here but once a millennium.

Cain stepped into the cabin, temporarily blocking the light. The fire crackled and spewed in the hearth, casting his face in shadows.

"Can we stay here forever?" she asked quietly.

He heaved the heavy saddlebags onto the table, his eyes warming as he looked at her. "That's fine with me."

"Are you hungry?"

"The better question is: can you cook? I still remember those beans back at Falling Water."