Claudia Dain (20 page)

Nell's head tilted violently in the opposite direction. "Are you saying that you bandy my name about, comparing me to other women? Just who do you think you are, to discuss me as if I were a prize cow?"

"Now, Nell," Charles said, twirling his hat in his hands and crushing the brim all around, "I didn't mean it like that. You know that I wouldn't do anything to—"

"And I never gave you leave to call me by my given name, Mr. Lane. Please remember that when you're discussing me over drinks in the saloon!"

She turned and marched off, sideswiping Jack as she stomped back to the kitchen. Jack didn't mind; listening to another man get tied up by a woman put him in a real pleasant mood. He looked at the mangled hat in Lane's hands and smiled. Lane jerked his hat behind his back and swore softly.

"You finish your business here or did you want to talk to me, too?"

"Where'd they put you?"

"In the back, next to the kitchen."

"Well, let's go on," Charles grumbled. "I've got some things to tell you."

"You could have told me at the jail. I would have been by directly."

"I needed the air, thought I'd walk down here."

"And how was the air, down here?" Jack said over his grin.

"Cold as January," Charles mumbled, closing the door to Jack's room behind them.

Jack leaned his back against the closed door. Charles walked to the far wall, looked out the window, and then looked back at Jack.

"Poked through the fire," Lane said. "Looks like it was accidental, though I'm not a top hand with fires."

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that you're not real popular."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Maybe somebody'd want to get you out of Abilene?"

"How many people heard about me kissing Anne? I'd guess about that many would want me on the next train out," Jack said evenly, his eyes not dropping.

He was talking about Anne, but he was thinking about the killings. He was roped close to Abilene because of those killings. Maybe the killer knew that. The sheriff sure did. Might be better if folks thought he was staying because of Anne. Might even protect her better than she could protect herself. Hell, she couldn't protect herself from a tick.

"That'd be one reason," Lane acknowledged. "Any others I should know about?"

"No. But if anybody asks where I was when that fire started, I was in the saloon. With three witnesses."

"If anybody asks, I'll tell 'em," Lane said pleasantly.

"How about telling me about Tucker?" Jack said, easing off the door and coming more fully into the room that was now his. "When'd he hit Abilene the first time?"

"Maybe four months ago, maybe a bit more. He came scouting through before he settled."

"How much has he settled? I heard he traveled around some."

"Yeah, he's on the loose a bit," Lane acknowledged. "He's always off, checking on land and finding buyers. Comes back to Abilene to register the deeds and the sales. Always seems to have a pocketful of money. Always a smile on his face."

"A pocketful of money will do that for some people, give them something to smile about. You ever get the idea he was smiling about something else?"

"Like women?"

"Like women," Jack said with no trace of a smile.

"The only woman he's buzzed around here has been Anne. I don't know where he was before he came here. He didn't offer and I didn't have no call to press."

"And Anne didn't have no call to complain."

"No," Lane said with the beginnings of a smile. A man didn't like to be alone in his female troubles. "She's seemed happy enough with him."

But she had kissed Jack in full light and bright public and then again in this very room. Tucker didn't have her held all that tight. Still, there was a hungry look about that woman that didn't have everything to do with kissing; she was looking for something to fill up a hole somewhere in her. He knew the signs of that well enough.

"But he's not made his move."

Lane shrugged. "Not yet, but the talk is that it'll be soon."

Neither one of them mentioned that Jack's kiss might have something to do with the timetable.

"What's the talk on the ladies in this house?" Jack asked. "I've never come across so many women in one family who ain't got a man."

"They've all been married, all's except Anne, and that'll come." Lane chuckled. "Daphne came into Abilene with a husband and two girls. She's still got the girls. Her husband, Malcolm Todd, was something big with the railroad and they came when Abilene was just a river and a patch of grass with only the hope of cows. The rail line moved west and so did he. Climbed on that train he'd help build and took off."

"The line moved a few years ago," Jack said. "Them girls must have been old enough to marry by then."

"Sure they was," Lane agreed, "but Miss Daphne, she keeps a close line on family and, married or not, those girls weren't going to stray. Sarah's man went off to war, came back when it was over, and lit out the day after his homecoming. That was seven years ago."

"What about Nell's man?"

Charles swallowed a grunt of disgust. "He was a lawman in Missouri. Local hero. Went bad and went west."

"Left his wife and daughter?"

"Yeah, left Miss Daphne, too."

There was something to that. A man wanted to make his own home with his own woman; he didn't want to marry a daughter and get a mother-in-law, especially one who wouldn't disappear.

"Makes your case kinda hard," Jack said.

"What case?" Lane scowled.

"Anne's mama." Jack smiled slightly.

"There ain't nothing like that there," Lane grumbled.

"You said that right." Jack grinned. At least the joke wasn't on him anymore.

There was a quick knock and the door opened before Jack could say a word. He didn't pull his gun; anyone who would knock first didn't have to be afraid of what he'd find on the other side of Jack's door.

Nell poked her head in, then flattened her lips when she saw the sheriff. Jack felt his grin get bigger.

"I just wanted to know if you expect meals with what you're paying for the room. We don't have a lot, Lord knows, and—"

"I leave it to you, ma'am; you decide what's right and I'll abide," Jack said.

"Well, I don't think it was right for Anne to offer to house a stranger, no matter what. She should have come and talked it over with her elders before proceeding. As to the food, the hotel doesn't provide—"

"Now, Nell," Charles interrupted, "that doesn't seem very neighborly, considering the circumstances. Why, this man has lost all he had."

"He's got guns enough," she muttered at Lane, "but I'll give him meals since it's my Christian duty. You can have Anne's portion since she won't be eating with us tonight, Mr. Skull," she said, turning to Jack. "She's got an arrangement with her beau and won't be in the house this evening."

"The name's Scullard, ma'am," Jack said, "and I thank you for the meal."

Nell's eyes softened in response to his soft tone of voice. "You're welcome, Mr. Scullard. I hope you enjoy it. I'm sorry about mangling your name. It won't happen again." She shut the door softly behind her as she left the room.

"The women in this family sure don't have much bite," Jack said when she'd gone.

"I thought Nell was sharp enough," Lane grumbled.

Jack couldn't stop the chuckle that filled his throat and only laughed harder at Lane's scowl.

"Think about it, Sheriff," he finally said, "Anne's mama had her back up but she spit nothing at all and settled down quick. Anne apologizes to anyone who'll stand still long enough to listen. Sarah, now that Sarah, she's got some spine, but she let her mama scare her man off. No bite."

Lane nodded and worked at straightening his hat brim. "You're right, but Miss Daphne, she's got teeth for the whole lot of them. Sarah has more powder than Nell, and Anne the least of all. But that Anne, she's a sweet gal. Swim a river to fetch you a sack of flour."

"Yeah, even if her legs were broke," Jack said. It wasn't a compliment and Lane knew it. "Now Nell, if you was to do the asking, would break your legs and tell you to get your own damn flour."

Lane put his hat on; it looked respectable enough to go out in daylight. "You don't want to hear what Miss Daphne would tell you to do with your flour," he said as he walked out the door.

Chapter 15

He could see them from the porch steps, set out like petrified wood, stiff and proper, waiting in the parlor for Anne's beau to come fetch her. Truth to tell, they were all fine-looking women; even Miss Daphne had her points. The glow of lamplight lit them softly, making dark hair shine and the lines of age fade like tracks in a sandstorm. Fine women and not a man among them.

Except for Bill Tucker.

Jack bent his head, turning his eyes away from the domestic contentment of the scene in the parlor. He had his Colt to clean and he'd best get it done while the light was still with him. He knew without asking that Miss Daphne wouldn't abide his cleaning his guns in her house; it was a dirty, greasy business and he supposed there wasn't a woman alive who'd wish the job done in a bedroom.

He didn't care where he did it and had spent the better part of his life living out of doors anyway. He cleaned his guns every time he used them, and every few days whether he had used them or not. Most of the time, they got hard use.

He was a good, steady shot. It had taken him some time to get good and he'd lose the skill quick enough if he didn't keep it up. Problem was, he'd been in Abilene a good bit and hadn't fired off his guns as often as he'd have liked. One advantage of living out under the sky, he could fire off a few dozen rounds without bothering anybody. Couldn't do that living under Miss Daphne's roof. Just thinking of her reaction forced a smile out of him.

"What are you doing here?"

Jack looked up slowly. The polished leather shoes, the creased pants, the brocade vest, the silk tie, the proud and flustered expression: Tucker.

"I live here," Jack said, enjoying the confusion on Tucker's face. "Hotel burned down today. Remember?"

"Of course I remember."

"Well, the offer was made for me to bunk here. I accepted."

"Here? Wasn't there any place else you could have gone?" Bill looked as if he were going to pop a blood vessel.

"Don't know," Jack said and then smiled. "I like it here."

He clicked the Colt back together and holstered it smoothly, almost in a single motion. Bill looked at that action, swallowed, and stopped talking.

"I notice you don't carry," Jack said. "Why's that?"

"Never saw the need," Tucker said, the arrogance thick in his throat.

"Trust others to take care of you, is that it?" Jack asked, his voice relentlessly casual.

Tucker flushed from the throat and said, "I can take care of myself, been taking care of myself for more years than I want to count. Not everyone needs a gun."

"True, but most everyone needs somethin'. I once knew a man down on the Rio Grande, he used a whip. Could kill flies with that thing."

"Jiggs Maron," Tucker said, his eyes alight with recognition.

"You knew him," Jack said.

"He taught me, when I was starting out."

"You ran cattle, then?"

The memory of Jiggs had relaxed him, made him remember; he was talking now and not thinking much. That was good.
Keep talking, Tucker. Spit it out.

"Up the Chisholm, three times," Bill said.

"Dusty work," Jack said, pushing the memory, wanting him to savor it. "A good life, though, for those who can stand it."

"Hard work, but my whip sang by the end of the first drive; I could make that line go anywhere I wanted."

"Been up the Chisholm Trail myself. Never saw you. Did hear of a man who liked his whip, though; used to do some loco things with it."

Bill looked down and recollected whom he was talking to. He closed his mouth.

"You meet Anne back then, when you were riding herd?"

"No."

"All the trails led to Abilene for a while there; surprised you didn't see her."

"It was a different town then."

"That's the truth," Jack said. "All farmers and merchants now. Not the town it was."

"It's a better town, respectable."

"Sure, and you're helping to make it so, right? You sell land, I hear, and do fine at it. Takes a bit of traveling, don't it?"

"No more than you, with what you do."

"As to traveling, I'm sure I do more. You been to the saloon in Topeka? The one with the purple walls?"

"No, I don't get that far east," Bill said.

Jack could feel his discomfort and confusion; Tucker didn't want to talk. Jack was being friendly; they were two men who had some things in common, talking it out. For Bill not to talk would make him look like he was holding out, hiding something. The fact that he was talking when he so clearly didn't want to told Jack a lot. Why would a man who had nothing to hide care if it looked like he had something to hide? An innocent man would say, "I'm not talking with you and I don't give a damn what you think." Bill seemed to care, talking against his inclination.