The Loner: The Blood of Renegades (24 page)
He was done.
Chapter 2
In Fury, it was still raining come the morning, although it had settled into a slow but steady drizzle. It didn’t take much water for an Arizona inhabitant to forget the dust, Jason discovered. Walking up the street to the office, he didn’t pass a single water trough that wasn’t filled to the brim—and grimy—from gritty, dusty cowhands helping themselves to a free bath. Jason pitied the horses that had to drink from those troughs.
Surprisingly, there hadn’t been much wind damage. To the town, anyway. Ward Wanamaker told him, before he went home for the day, that the east side of the surrounding stockade wall looked like God had been using it for target practice.
Jason didn’t feel like walking around the outside of town, so he passed the office and continued all the way down the central street, to the steps that would take him to the top of the wall. His father had taught him every wall had to have places from which men could defend the interior, and this one did, around all four sides. When he reached the top, he stood on the rails running around the perimeter, and looked down.
Ward had been right.
Cactus—clumps, arms, and pieces—covered the outside of the wall. At the base was enough vegetation to start a small forest—if anybody in their right mind would want a forest of cactus. He got to thinking a forest of cactus just might be a good thing for the outside of that wall. He knew cactus would send down roots and take off, if you threw a hunk of it down on the ground. And they sure had a good rain last night, that was for sure. The stuff was probably rooted already.
He decided to leave it. It’d be just one more deterrent for Apache, and he was all for that.
He figured the stuff stuck to the wall would eventually fall off, leaving spines and stickers behind to discourage anyone who might try to climb in, too. If they made it past the cactus forest, that was.
“Oh, get a grip on yourself,” he muttered. “Stuff only blew in last night, and here you’ve already got it six feet tall!”
Shaking his head, he went back down the steps and started toward his office. He paused before going inside, wondering if he should have a word with Rafe Lynch. He decided to put it off. Frankly, he didn’t want it to turn into a confrontation and he was afraid Lynch could do that pretty damn fast.
Actually, he was afraid Lynch could rope, tie, and brand him before he even knew he was in the ketch pen.
He walked into the office, expecting one hell of a mess that needed cleaning up. To his surprise, Ward had spent a busy night with the push broom and the cleaning cloths.
Hell, Jason thought. This place ain’t been this clean since we built it! When he stepped out back, he found even the bedding from the cells had been hung out in the rain!
“Wash and dry in one move,” Jason said with a chuckle. “That’s Ward.”
Southeast of town, Wash Keogh was looking like mad for his gold vein, the one he was certain was going to make him rich, and the one from which he carried a goose egg-sized chunk in his pants pocket.
He’d been searching all morning, but nothing, absolutely nothing showed up. It had drizzled long enough after sunrise that the desert was still wet, washed free of its usual cover of dust. He had expected to find himself confronted with a shimmering wall of gold, the kind they wrote about in those strike-it-rich dime novels.
But no. Nothing.
Had somebody been there before him and cleaned it all out? It sure looked that way. Maybe the chunk he’d found had simply been tossed away like so much trash.
He growled under his breath. Life just wasn’t fair! “What did those other boys do right that I done wrong?” he asked the skies. “I lived me a good life, moved settlers back and forth, protected ’em from the heathen Indians! I worked with or for the best—Jedediah Fury, Whiskey Hank Ruskin, and Herbert Bower, to name just three. All good, Godly men! I brung nuns to Santa Fe and a rabbi to San Diego, for crimeny’s sake, and I guarded that preacher an’ his family to Fury. All right, I do my share of cussin’, some say more. And I like my who-hit-John, but so do them priests o’ yours. What more do you want from me?”
There was no answer, only the endless, clear blue sky.
Another hour, he thought. Another hour, and then I’ll have me some lunch.
He set off again, his eyes to the ground, keenly watching for any little hint of glittering gold.
Jason had let his sister Jenny sleep in. She was probably tuckered out from the storm. He knew he was.
The girls—Megan MacDonald was with her—woke at nine, yawning and stretching, and both ran to the window at the sound of softly pattering rain.
“Thank God!” Jenny said loudly enough that Megan jumped. Jenny didn’t notice. “Rain!” she said in wonder, and rested her hand, palm out, on the window pane. “And it’s cool,” she added in a whisper. “Megan, feel!”
She took Megan’s hand and pressed its palm against the pane, and Megan’s reaction was to hiss at the chill. “My gosh!” she said, and put her other hand up next to it. “It’s cold!”
Ever down-to-earth, Jenny said, “Oh, it’s not cold, Meg, just cool. I wonder if Jason’s up?”
She set off down the hall to wake him, but found his room empty except for an absolutely filthy pile of clothes heaped on the floor, dead center!
“He’s gone,” she said to nobody. Meg hadn’t followed her. Turning, she grumbled, “Well, I hope he had the good sense to take a bath,” and walked up the hall toward the kitchen, where she heard Megan already rooting through the cupboards.
A little while later, after both girls had washed last night’s grime out of their hair and off their bodies, and had themselves a good breakfast, they walked uptown toward Solomon and Rachael’s store.
The storm hadn’t shaken Jenny’s hens, who had taken shelter in the low haymow of Jason’s little barn, and subsequently laid a record number of eggs. The girls’ aim was to sell the excess eggs and find a new broom and dustpan, which Jenny had needed for a coon’s age, but hadn’t gotten around to buying yet. It seemed like the time, what with the floors of the house nearly ankle-deep in detritus.
They had barely reached the mercantile and were staring in the window, when the skies suddenly opened again! Rain began to pelt them in huge, hard drops. Megan grabbed Jenny’s hand and yanked her. “C’mon!” she hollered.
But Jenny put the brakes on, and skidded along the walk behind Megan, the egg basket swinging from her hand. “Wait! The door’s back the other way, Meg!”
“Come on!” Megan insisted, tugging Jenny for all she was worth. “The mercantile’s closed!”
“It is?” Jenny began to run alongside Megan then, realizing where Megan was headed. It wasn’t a very nice place—it was Abigail Krimp’s. Any port in a storm, she told herself. It surely beat standing out here. Her skirt was already soaked!
Abigail was holding the door for them, and they ran directly inside, laughing and giggling from the race, not to mention where it had ended. It was the first time either one of them had so much as peeked inside a place like Abigail’s—just the location made them giddy!
But Abigail was just as nice as Jenny remembered from the trip coming out. Why, she didn’t look “sullied” at all! That’s what Mrs. Milcher always called her. It occurred to Jenny that she didn’t even know what
sullied
meant. And she had the nerve to call herself Miss Morton’s assistant schoolmarm!
sullied
meant. And she had the nerve to call herself Miss Morton’s assistant schoolmarm!
Abigail put a hand on each girl’s shoulder and said, “Why don’t you young ladies have a seat while you wait it out? I declare, this weather of late is conspirin’ to put me outta business!” She led them to the first of three tables and sat them down. “You gals like sarsaparilla?”
Jenny’s mouth began to water. It had been ages! She piped up, “Yes, ma’am!” and Megan nodded eagerly.
But Jenny’s money sense moved in. “We don’t have any money, Miss Abigail. But thank you anyway.”
Megan looked at her as if she’d like to toss her over the stockade, and Jenny stared down at her hands.
“Not everything in here’s for sale, you sillies!” Abigail laughed. “I thought we’d just have us a nice, friendly sody pop. Been forever since I just got to sit and socialize.” And she was off, behind the bar.
Megan and Jenny exchanged glances, but Abigail was soon back with three bottles of sarsaparilla, three glasses, a bottle opener, and a small bowl of real ice! The ice itself opened up the first topic of conversation, and Abigail told them she had a little cellar dug far underground, under the back of the bar, where she kept a barrel full of ice when she could get it. This was the last of her current stash, which had come down from the northern mountains with the last wagon train to stop in Fury.
Jenny was transfixed, but Megan was halfway through her first glass. Having put enough ice in the glass, her bottle was enough to pour out twice. Jenny looked away from Abigail long enough to ice her glass, then fill it with sarsaparilla. It bubbled into fizz when it hit the ice, and she was giggling out loud, which started Abigail, then Megan, laughing as well.
Abigail lifted her glass. “To old friends,” she said.
Jenny and Megan followed suit, then clinked all three together and drank.
Until her dying day, Jenny would swear that was the best sarsaparilla she ever drank.
“What the hell’s goin’ on out here? A hen party?” asked a new voice, male and jovial, but pretending to be cross.
Jenny and Megan twisted in their chairs to see the speaker. Over six feet tall, he was coming out of the hall behind him, all clanking spurs, hip pistols, and worn blue jeans with nothing up top except his long johns. And his hat, of course. Jenny didn’t understand why in the West, no man took off his hat, not even to greet a lady. Not even in church. Just a touch of the brim was the most she’d seen since they left Kansas!
But this man—who Jenny liked already, just on general principle—not only took his hat clear off, but bowed to the table! Then he swept his hat wide, and said, “Good morning ladies! I trust everyone came through the night in one piece?”
While the girls tittered, he looked at Abigail, raised his brows, indicating the empty chair at the table, and asked, “May I?”
“Certainly,” she said. She was on the edge of laughter, herself.
The man sat down—right next to Jenny, who nearly fainted.
He had wavy, sandy hair cut fairly short. His eyes were blue, but not regular blue, like hers, nor sky blue, like Jason’s. They were a deep, deep blue, as blue as she imagined the ocean would be if you swam down so far your lungs were ready to burst. And he was, well, gorgeous, if you could call a man that.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” said the vision sitting beside her. “My name is Lynch, Rafe Lynch, and I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Rafe.”
Jenny stuttered, “H-hello, Rafe. I’m Jenny Fury.”
“Like the town!” He smiled wide. “Coincidence?”
She barely had her mouth open when she heard Megan say, “Her father was the wagon master who started us West and her brother is our marshal, and I’m Megan MacDonald and my brother owns the bank.” Megan ran out of air. Jenny said, “Yes. What Megan said, I mean.” She felt herself flush hotly and took a quick sip of her soda pop.
It was Abigail who saved her. She reached over and put a hand on Rafe’s arm. “Can I get you somethin’, honey?”
Rafe picked a little chunk of ice out of the bowl and ran it over his forehead. “A beer, if you wouldn’t mind, Abby.”
She said, “No problem at all,” and stood up. Before she left, though, she said, “Rafe, honey, why don’t you tell the girls how you just beat the dust storm to town? I swan, I woulda been scared to death!”
He grinned. “Don’t take much to scare you, does it, Abby?”
She laughed and he kept grinning, even as he turned back toward the girls. “How old are you two? Unless it’s uncalled for to ask, I mean.”
Megan said, a little too proudly, “I’m twenty-one. Jenny is only nineteen.”
Oh, terrific. Now she was marked as the baby of the group. She was going to have a word or two with Megan later. That was for sure! As calmly as she could, Jenny said, “But I’ll be twenty come June.”
There. That was better.
“Your brother’s the famous Jason Fury I been hearin’ so much about?”
Jenny had never heard that he was famous, but she said, “Yes, I guess so. But he’s just my brother.”
Rafe Lynch ran the ice over his forehead again, then popped it into his mouth. He pointed an index finger at Jenny. “You’re funny. Why, I heard about him back in California! Somethin’ about a couple o’ Indian attacks. And yeah, somethin’ else . . .” He smiled and thumped his temple. “It’s gone right outta my head for the time bein’.”
Abigail slid his beer across the table before she sat down again. “You tell ’em yet how you beat the dust storm?”
Jenny wanted to know what the other thing was that he’d heard, but held her tongue while Rafe took the first sip of his beer. Megan, she noticed, was leaning forward eagerly. Way too eagerly for somebody who was supposed to be soft on her brother Jason, she thought. That was something else she was going to have to talk to Meg about later on.
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