It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own (Code of the West) (23 page)

“No, he’s not Mexican. But what difference would that make? He’s a professional gunman. He has a reputation down in Arizona.”

“Good. It will be all the better that I’m the one who guns him down. And he ain’t in Arizona anymore. Now when’s this Tap comin’ home?”

“It might be any minute .
 . . or it might be weeks.”

“Honey, it don’t matter to me. I’ve got plenty of time, but I don’t think you’re going to like sittin’ in a chair for weeks.”

“If I don’t get back to the hotel tonight, they’ll send men out to find me.”

“Hotel? What hotel?”

“McCurley’s.”

“Let’s face it, darlin’, there ain’t nobody who gives a nickel about a used-up dance-hall girl. Nobody is goin’ to come lookin’ for you. Nobody cares, and you know it. Whether I bury you in the ground or haul you off to Wyomin’, nobody gives a—”

“God cares,” she murmured.

“God? You got religion all of a sudden? That’s a good one. There’s only one place people like you and me are goin’, and you know it.”

He yanked the chair back, almost causing her to fall to the floor, and dragged her into the kitchen.

“Now, then, it looks like supper is cooked. Ain’t that nice? And a big meal, too. You figurin’ on Mr. Fastshot eatin’ soon? This is mighty nice. But since he won’t get a chance to eat it, I might as well help myself. And looky here, a pie.” He grabbed a towel and pulled the pie out of the oven. Scooping out a plate of stew and bread, he smacked and gobbled it down.

“If you ride off right now, Beckett, I won’t even tell him you were here,” she bargained.

He stared at her for a moment and then continued to eat. He marched out to the front room, peered out the front wi
ndow, and then returned to the kitchen, banging open the cupboards.

“Where’s the likker? Where does he keep the bottle?”

“He don’t drink.”

“You believe that lie? Every gunslinger on this earth takes a stiff belt.”

“Not Andrews.” She tugged at her bonds as she talked.

“And I suppose you’re goin’ to tell me he’s got religion, too?”

“Perhaps he has.”

“Good. Then you won’t mind me puttin’ a bullet in his brain and sendin’ him to his heavenly reward.”

He dragged the chair, with Pepper still tied in it, back to the front room. Using the towel to protect his hand, he brought the pie and a fork and tossed them on the table. Then Beckett took the towel, jammed it in Pepper’s mouth, and tied it behind her head.

“Now I wouldn’t want you hollering at your boyfriend, would I?”

He paced the floor of the house with his revolver in his right hand, constantly glancing out the windows in all directions.

Lord, I’ve got to tell Tap .
 . . before I die . . . before he dies. I’ve got to tell Tap who I am. I’ve got to tell him I love him. I’ve got to tell him how much I want him to learn to love me, too. Lord, just that . . . just that much. Please God, I don’t deserve it, but . . . but . . .

By the time the pie had cooled, it was dark. Beckett closed the thin front-room curtains. Then he lit a lantern and set it on the table in front of Pepper.

“Now we want a nice friendly shadow greetin’ your beau, so maybe we ought to do some rearrangin’.”

Beckett stepped close to Pepper. She tried to shout through the gag. He pulled the combs out of her hair, and she could feel his dirty fingers running through it.

“How nice. That’s a lot more friendly. Now just one more adjustment." He yanked her hair back, forcing her chin toward the ceiling. She struggled to see what he was doing. Beckett pointed his Colt at her neck. Then he shoved the hard, cold steel barrel of the revolver between her skin and the high collar of her dress. He turned the barrel so that the gun sight caught the material of her clothing. Then he jerked the pistol back, ripping the top several buttons off the yellow cotton dress.

“Isn’t that more comfortable? You look like the kind of dance-hall girl any dumb, drunken cowboy would be inte
rested in.”

I don’t want to be here, Lord. Take me away, please. Don’t let Tap find me like this.

For almost an hour Beckett sat there with his revolver cocked, pointed at the front door, and lying on the table. He forked the pie and described in detail how much fun he and Pepper would have once the shooting was over.

Both of them jumped when they heard the squeak of a buckboard roll into the yard. Pepper’s heart pounded so loud that it ached. She thought she would pass out.

Beckett stayed away from the window, making sure Pepper was between him and the door. His revolver was now pointed at her head.

She could hear the jingle of spurs as someone ran across the yard. She wanted to shout, to run to him, to wake up from a bad dream.

“Pepper? You’re here? Come see what I bought you.” He shoved open the front door and stepped inside. “You’ll be able to sing and—”

“You go for your gun, mister, and your dance-hall gir
lfriend is dead. You hear me?”

“Beckett?” Tap gasped. “What’s goin’ on?” He didn’t try for his gun, but did a quick search of the room. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

She barely nodded, feeling faint.

“Beckett, you’re a dead man. You can put all six shots in me, but I’ll still have time to put one between your eyes.”

“That’s what your hurdy-gurdy gal keeps tellin’ me, but I just don’t believe it.”

Pepper’s heart sank. Every word Beckett spoke crushed her spirit.

No, Lord, don’t let him find out this way. Please. I’ve got to tell him my way. You promised me a chance. Please!

“Go ahead, gunslinger. Pull your .44. Let’s see how good you are. I say I can put a bullet through her head b
efore you clear your holster. So, do it.”

Pepper noticed Tap looking all around the room as Beckett taunted him.

“Here’s the last laugh, Mr. Tap Andrews. When you’re laying there on the floor dead, Miss Pepper Paige will be ridin’ off with me. But that’s what’s so fun about dance-hall girls, ain’t it? They don’t care who they’re with . . . as long as he has money. Why, me and Pepper, we go back a long time, don’t we, darlin’? We used to spend many a wild time at April’s. She was all the boys’ favorite, yes sir. But her heart belonged to me. But then she soured and packed up and left.”

Pepper couldn’t hold it back any longer. Even with a gag in her mouth, she began to sob.
Lord, have him shoot me. Shoot me, Beckett. I don’t want to live. Not now. Not like this. Oh, please, Lord, let me die.
Even with her hands tied, she could tell there were no tears. Even at a moment like this.

“Come on, gunslinger,” Beckett bellowed, “Make your move. I’ll show you who’s the best. The winner gets the dance-hall darlin’—at least until she rides off with some Cal
ifornia gambler.”

“It’s your play," Tap heckled back. "What’s the matter? Don’t have the nerve, do you? You didn’t think this through too good. You know that if you shoot the girl, I’ll have a bu
llet through you before you ever have that hammer pulled back again. So you’ve got to shoot me first. But if you only hit me in the body, I’ll have plenty of time to lead you down. That means you’ve got to aim for my head. Of course, if you miss, you’re dead, and I don’t have a scratch. Are you that good a shot? Are you that good? Maybe sober, but how about half-drunk? Can you do it, Beckett? Or do you just limit yourself to beating up dance-hall girls?”

In the flickering lantern light, the silhouette of the gray and white cat romped across the room toward Tap. Beckett jerked his gun, squeezed the trigger and slammed a bullet into the floor.

Tap never took his eyes off Beckett.

The .44-40 missed Pepper by no more than four inches and caught Beckett about a quarter of an inch above the right ey
ebrow, driving him against the back wall.

Pepper let go with a muffled shriek.

Tap jumped to get between her and Beckett, cocking the revolver. His precaution was not needed. Beckett’s lifeless body slumped to the floor.

Jamming the gun back into his holster, he spun around to untie Pepper’s hands and then her gag.

Her tearless sobbing was uncontrollable. She tried to catch her breath. She tried to keep her hands and arms from shaking.

Tap grabbed her, picked her up in his arms, and, kicking the door open, carried her outside.

He’s going to put me in the carriage and make me go back. Lord, I didn’t even get a chance to explain.

She tried to speak, but nothing came out.

Tap carried her to the bench on the front porch and sat her there. Then he sat down beside her and held her close to him. With one arm slipped around her waist and the other entwined in her tousled blonde hair, he pressed her head to his chest.

Neither said anything for a very long time.

When she finally looked up, the moon was just bright enough that she could see him stare out into the night.

Her voice was weak, trembling. “Why did you leave McCu
rley’s without seein’ me? You knew I wanted to talk to you. Why didn’t you come back? I prayed and I prayed that I would have a chance to tell you. Oh, Tap, that awful man was right. I’m just a dance-hall girl. I was tryin’ to fool you. I’m not Miss Suzanne Cedar. I can’t be her, Tap. Oh God, I wish I could be her. I wish you could have loved me the way you loved the lady in those letters. I tried, but I don’t know how. I never learned how to do it right."
Oh, Jesus, help me now. I hurt so bad.

He didn’t loosen his grip, but spoke in low, soft tones. “Aimee Paige, you hush up for a minute and let me tell you a story.”

“You . . . you know my real name?”

“Let me tell you what I know. Aimee was born in Georgia. Her daddy died defending Atlanta. Her mama remarried a man named Bonner Hopkins. He had four boys all older than her. They moved to Nebraska, then to Nevada, then to Flo
rence, Idaho.”

“Who told you—”

“Just wait,” Tap continued. “Aimee’s mama got real sick in Florence, and Aimee had to cook, clean, sew, and wash for Hopkins and his sons. When she was fourteen, her mama died, and Hopkins, who worked long hours in the mine, used to come home drunk every day.” Still holding her close, he looked down at her blonde hair. “How am I doin’ so far?”

Her head against his chest, she nudged him to co
ntinue, but said nothing.

“After one week of several beatings from Hopkins, she was cornered in a barn by two of her stepbrothers who tried to tear off her dress. She stabbed one in the leg with a pitc
hfork, and the other she whacked along the side of the head with an axe -handle.

“She left town that day with a man who took her as far as Boise City, where he promptly got caught cheatin’ in a card came and was shot and killed while she looked on.

“After some weeks of stealin’ food scraps and sleepin’ out under a bridge, she took a job in a dance hall. By then she was still only fifteen. Since then it’s been dance halls in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Colorado.

“Then one day while she worked for April Hastings in Pi
ngree Hill, a severely injured lady named Suzanne Cedar was brought into the dance hall. This lady had come west to marry a rancher named Zachariah Hatcher. When the lady died in her room, Aimee decided to pretend to be Miss Cedar.

“She does a good job of foolin’ the rancher, but then finds out that the man is not Hatcher, but just a driftin’ shootist by the name of Tap Andrews, who happens to be an escaped pri
soner.”

He paused for a moment.

“How’s my story?” he asked.

“Painfully accurate,” she admitted. “Who told you all that? How long have you known?”

“Oh, I’ve known those details for about twenty-four hours, but I didn’t really believe it . . . until just now. Stack Lowery went with me to the auction, and he told me the story.”

“Stack? How could he?”

“Don’t blame Stack. He was under threat. It just slipped out at first. He didn’t want me to buy the piano—told me that Pepper couldn’t play or sing.”

“I can’t. But there’s some of the story you don’t know.”

He sat her up and released his grip. “All right, tell me the missing parts.”

“Keep holding me,” she requested softly.

“What?”

“Treat me like I was a hurting dance-hall girl having a bad week. Hold me gentle.”

Tap pulled her back into his arms.

“All that you heard is close enough to the truth. I’m not goin’ to tell you more about it because I don’t ever want to think about those days again. But Stack couldn’t tell you about the night that Suzanne Cedar died in my arms. She was ever’thing I wanted to be but never had the chance. She loved Hatcher dearly and yet trusted her Jesus right up to the end. She told me she thought I was an angel sent from God to take care of her.

“When she died, I got to readin’ those letters from Hatcher . . . and something inside of me made me want to get out of the dance hall and be like her. The next night Beckett came in drunk as usual. He started treatin’ me mean, and I put him down. I quit at the same moment that April fired me. Having nothin’, and with no place to go, I contrived the scheme to pretend I was Miss Cedar and see how far I could take it.